Maureen Conway is executive director of the Economic Opportunities Program (EOP) at The Aspen Institute and the director of EOP’s Workforce Strategies Initiative. Ms. Conway has headed up workforce research at The Aspen Institute since 1999. She leads a team of researchers and consultants in a variety of initiatives to identify and advance strategies that help low-income Americans gain ground in today's labor market. Her area of expertise is in sectoral, or industry-specific, workforce development, and under her leadership EOP’s Workforce Strategies Initiative has investigated the outcomes of sectoral workforce development, provided innovation seed grants to leading programs in order to illuminate promising practices, and explored key operating features of programs in specific industry sectors. Recent work includes projects that seek to assess the value of workforce development services to business customers, to shed light on the ways in which sector programs support constituents in their struggles to overcome a range of personal and systemic barriers, to understand the potential for greater collaboration among community colleges and community-based organizations, and much more. In addition, EOP's Workforce Strategies Initiative is home to a national annual fellowship program that encourages and supports rising leaders in the sectoral workforce development field, building peer networks and providing opportunities for skills acquistion and professional growth. Ms. Conway was named deputy director of Aspen's Economic Opportunities Program in 2001 and executive director of EOP in 2010. Ms. Conway’s previous experience includes consulting for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris and work for the U.S. Peace Corps, where she advised on the design, management, and monitoring and evaluation of the organization’s economic development programs in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. Maureen is the author of numerous publications on workforce development, including case studies, policy briefs, and research reports, and she has presented findings from her research at a variety of national and regional conferences. Maureen has an M.B.A. from Columbia University, a Masters in Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina, and a B.A. in economics and mathematics from Holy Cross College.