Yvonne Hao stepped down last month from her job as state economic development secretary. But that didn’t stop her from showing up at a local chamber event this week to make one more impassioned pitch for “Team Massachusetts.”
In a fiery speech to the Charles River Regional Chamber at the Sheraton hotel in Needham on Wednesday, Hao criticized the cost-cutting coming from Washington under the Trump administration and a Republican-led Congress, saying the damage to everything from health care to innovation to education could be long-lasting. She likened it to a new chief executive joining Nike and saying, let’s get rid of the shoes.
“They’re destroying the fabric of what makes our country great,” said Hao, speaking next to her former lieutenant, and now interim economic development secretary, Ashley Stolba. “Things are not good, and it’s only going to get worse.”
Rather than be gloomy, Hao urged the roughly 250 business leaders in the ballroom not to cry about the latest executive orders from the White House and instead to work together on a game plan to ensure the state’s continued economic success. She likened the situation to the NBA playoffs, with the Boston Celtics behind the New York Knicks. Down but not out. (True to form, the C’s roared back to beat the Knicks that evening.)
“We may not win every game, every series, but we’re in this for the long haul,” Hao said. “When the times get tough … that’s when you want to be on ‘Team Massachusetts.’ … This is the time for us to step up.”
Hao had been scheduled to speak to the chamber before she announced her decision to leave state government, after two-plus years in the Healey administration. Chamber president Greg Reibman said Hao told him that she still planned to attend the event, regardless of whether he kept her in the speaking lineup. Reibman responded: If you’re still coming, we’re still putting you on stage. (Other speakers included Stolba, Eastern Bank executive chair Bob Rivers, and Federal Reserve Bank of Boston economist Mary Burke.)
Hao talked about how she got the job in the Healey administration, and to some extent, why she decided to leave it. Her background was in private equity, not government, and she was a top executive at online pharmacy PillPack when Amazon gobbled it up in 2018.
Governor Maura Healey offered her the job on New Year’s Day and gave her 24 hours to decide. Hao said the pay wasn’t as good as what she was earning on several private-sector boards, but she felt it was her turn to give back, especially because she was the first in her family to be born in the US.
“I’m the product of the American Dream,” Hao said. “I thought, I owe so much to this state and this country, if I have a chance to give back … shouldn’t I at least try?”
Hao said she was intensely worried when she started about the domestic out-migration that Massachusetts was experiencing in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic: roughly 1,100 people a week, leaving for other US states. Those numbers, she noted, are still not great but at least have improved to pre-pandemic levels.
Her biggest achievement while in the administration: advancing a $4 billion economic development bond bill that the Legislature passed late last year. Now it will be up to Stolba and others to implement much of that bill. Hao was widely liked in the business community, in part because executives saw her as one of them, someone who could relate to their daily challenges.
But Hao’s tenure in state government came at a cost to her, and it wasn’t just a financial one. Finally, it was time to spend more time with her family, including her aging mother and her two teenage daughters.
“I told the governor, ‘Every day I’m in this job, I’m going to work my ass off,’ ” Hao said. “Unfortunately, when you do the job that way, it doesn’t leave a lot of time for other things.”
This is an installment of our weekly Bold Types column about the movers and shakers on Boston’s business scene.
Yvonne Hao, Mass. economic development secretary, is stepping down from Healey administration
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