Department of Economic & Community Development
Bill Hagerty, Commissioner

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William (Bill) F. Hagerty, IV was sworn in as commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development by Gov. Bill Haslam on January 15, 2011. As head of the state agency primarily responsible for job creation in Tennessee, Bill is on leave from Hagerty Peterson, LLC, a merchant bank and private equity firm he founded.

Bill has founded, funded and grown a number of successful business enterprises. As an executive, he has served as CFO, COO, CEO and chairman of a variety of domestic and international firms.

Bill has served on a number of corporate boards including RJ O’Brien, the nation’s largest independent futures and commodities firm and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, a global publisher that is the largest K-12 educational content provider in the United States. Bill has served in a number of senior executive positions with companies such as CyMed, the nation's third largest medical records company and NEW Customer Services Company, the nation's largest electronics warranty company. He was an early investor in Mapquest, which subsequently went public and was acquired by AOL/Time Warner. His international experience includes having served as CEO of ALAM, Ltd, a joint venture private equity investment platform majority owned by Lehman Brothers, which he helped establish with offices in Hong Kong and Beijing, China.

He also worked for the Boston Consulting Group for seven years and spent three years based in Tokyo, Japan where he served as senior expatriate with responsibilities throughout Asia.

In 2007 and 2008, Bill served on a voluntary basis as a National Finance Chairman for the Romney for President campaign and currently serves as an advisor for Governor Romney. He also served on the White House staff during the Bush (41) Administration with the President's Council on Competitiveness where his portfolio included international trade, financial markets, telecommunications and defense. Bill was a White House Fellow, serving on the staffs of the NASA administrator and the Vice President.

Bill attended Vanderbilt University where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in economics. He also attended Vanderbilt University Law School where he was a Wilson Scholar and associate editor of the Law Review. Bill resides in Nashville, Tenn.