BATON ROUGE – Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret has been named as president and CEO of the LSU Foundation.
“We are excited to bring in Stephen Moret as the president and CEO of the LSU Foundation,” said T. Cass Gaiennie, chairperson of the LSU Foundation Board of Directors. “Stephen brings many years of diverse leadership experience to the position, and he will be key in helping us enhance LSU’s fundraising efforts.”
The LSU Foundation inspires and shepherds philanthropic giving to LSU and builds long-lasting relationships with donors who bring life to current and emerging university priorities. The foundation supports LSU in its quest to enhance the student experience, provide working capital to recruit and retain world-class faculty and staff, support life-changing research, and drive economic development. The duties of the president and CEO of the LSU Foundation include establishing and communicating fundraising priorities, as well as coordinating fundraising activities throughout LSU campuses and philanthropic affiliate organizations. The LSU Foundation staff is dedicated to stewarding each gift to maximize donors’ impact on making LSU one of the best universities in the world.
Moret, who will begin in May, will be available to assist affiliate organizations of other LSU campuses and will act as a liaison to the LSU president to ensure more efficient and effective fundraising efforts. As president and CEO, he will also continue current work with philanthropic affiliate organizations toward the creation of a common database so they can be better coordinated.
Moret said, “One of my life’s greatest privileges and joys has been my quarter-century affiliation with our state’s flagship research university. LSU has had a transformational impact on my life, and it is one of Louisiana’s most precious economic assets. I share the aspirations of LSU President F. King Alexander and the LSU Foundation Board of Directors for LSU to build a more robust philanthropic support base that will enable the university to better sustain the important work of its faculty, continue and enhance its transformative impact on the lives of students, and invest in opportunities for academic preeminence. I look forward to working closely with President Alexander, the LSU Foundation staff and board members, the deans, faculty, staff, students, alumni, and other members of the LSU family to help fulfill our shared aspirations for LSU.”
“Working with Stephen over the past several years, I have seen firsthand the deep commitment and passion he holds for his alma mater, LSU,” said LSU College of Engineering Dean Rick Koubek. “His plans for the LSU Foundation to support excellence in our academic mission are both refreshing and motivating. Stephen’s appointment as president and CEO marks the beginning of a deeply transformational period for the LSU Foundation.”
G. Lee Griffin became interim president and CEO of the LSU Foundation July 1, 2011, and continued to serve at the request of the LSU Foundation Board of Directors. Griffin announced in mid-2014 he would retire at the end of that year, pending a successful search for his successor. Prior to joining the LSU Foundation, Griffin had retired as chairman and CEO of Bank One of Louisiana—now Chase.
Under Griffin’s leadership, the LSU Foundation developed and implemented a four-year plan to double annual fundraising and grow the endowment, marked its second most-successful fundraising year, and secured the largest unrestricted endowed gift in LSU’s history. He has served on the LSU Foundation’s Board of Directors since 1981, and will rejoin the board following his retirement.
“It is exceptionally good news for Louisiana and LSU that Stephen Moret has accepted the position of president and CEO of the LSU Foundation,” said John G. Davies, president of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation. “The suite of gifts that Stephen brings to this job are unprecedented. His career as the top state economic development officer in the country, his stellar performance as president of the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, and his strong academic grounding make him exquisitely suited to run the LSU Foundation at a critical juncture in the economic life of the university. Stephen is fortunate to follow G. Lee Griffin, who has served as president and CEO of the LSU Foundation for four years. Lee came out of retirement to step into the job of president and CEO at a time when the LSU Foundation was in significant need of reorganization and direction. In a very brief time, Lee has done an exceptional job to redirect the LSU Foundation to make it more effective and useful to the university. Stephen will take this work and accelerate it to yet higher levels.”
Under Moret’s leadership, LED became a fast, creative and solution-oriented partner for corporate executives and site selection consultants. Since 2008, LED has secured projects that are resulting in more than 91,000 new direct and indirect jobs and $62 billion in capital investment. Examples of LED’s wins under Moret’s leadership include landing major software/IT centers of IBM, CSC, GE Capital and CGI; recruiting Bell Helicopter’s Jet Ranger X manufacturing facility; attracting Benteler’s steel/pipe mill; and securing ConAgra’s sweet potato processing facility, which leverages research developed at the LSU AgCenter.
Many of the wins Moret and his team have secured were partially the result of innovative public/private partnerships LED developed with state universities to expand and modernize computer science programs, including those at Louisiana Tech, LSU, UL-Lafayette, UL-Monroe and UNO. In 2008, Moret collaborated with the Louisiana Community and Technical College System to create LED FastStart, a customized workforce-training program that Business Facilities has ranked the top state workforce-training program in the country for the last five years in a row.
During Moret’s tenure, LED repeatedly has been recognized as one of the top-performing state economic development agencies in the U.S. For example, Site Selection named LED among the top five state economic development agencies several times since 2008, including a no. 1 ranking in 2011. Additionally, Louisiana now ranks higher in every national business-climate ranking than it ever did prior to 2008.
Prior to being appointed by Gov. Jindal, Moret served as president and CEO of the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, or BRAC. Under Moret’s leadership from 2004 to 2008, BRAC grew into a national-caliber regional economic development organization. Revenues tripled at BRAC during Moret’s tenure, following the launch of “The Campaign for a Greater Baton Rouge,” a five-year, $15 million economic development initiative for the nine-parish Capital Region.
Moret previously worked as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company, where he specialized in service operations, including acute-care hospitals, Medicaid systems, pharmacy benefit managers, and Internet service providers. He also served as a project supervisor with Trinity Consultants, where he advised large industrial facilities on environmental issues related to major plant expansions.
Moret served as assistant to the chancellor of LSU, an independent consultant to Harvard University and a public policy fellow with the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, or PAR. His research at PAR on restructuring Louisiana’s higher education system earned the Most Distinguished Research Award from the national Governmental Research Association.
“Having known and worked closely with Stephen Moret for more than two decades, I could not be more pleased with this decision,” said Dr. William Jenkins, former president of the LSU System. “His diversity of abilities and experiences, along with his many accomplishments, are in perfect concert with the vision for this essential role. I’m very enthusiastic about what his selection will mean for the future of LSU.”
Lori Bertman, president and CEO of the Irene W. and C.B. Pennington Foundation, said, “Stephen is one of the most accomplished people in our entire state. He has held significant leadership roles in the public sector, private sector and nonprofit sector, and that experience will create an exciting opportunity to bring a cross-sector approach to cultivating greater philanthropic support for LSU. I look forward to partnering with him in the philanthropic space working to advance LSU.”
In 2008, Moret was a contributing author to “Retooling for Growth: Building a 21st Century Economy in America’s Older Industrial Areas,” a book published by Brookings Institution Press.
Moret earned a B.S. in mechanical engineering from LSU, where he was elected president of the student body, and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was elected co-president of the student body and was a recipient of the Dean’s Award for exceptional leadership and service. In addition to his work at LED, he is pursuing a doctorate in higher education management from the University of Pennsylvania, where his research focuses on the linkages between postsecondary education and the labor market.
For more information on the LSU Foundation, visit www.lsufoundation.org.
