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Emerging Leader Council: Member Bios

Jason Schupbach
Creative Economy Industry Director
Massachusetts Office of Business Development
100 Cambridge Street, Suite 1010
Boston, Massachusetts 02114
T 617-788-3602
E-mail: Jason.Schupbach@state.ma.us

Jason Schupbach

Jason Schupbach is the creative economy industry director at the Massachusetts Department of Business Development. Massachusetts’ economic development agency is the first in the nation to embrace a creative economy director position. He formerly was the director of ArtistLink, a major artist and creative economy initiative to stabilize and revitalize communities through the creation of affordable artist space created by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, The Boston Foundation, Ford Foundation, and several other arts and economic development agencies. He has a great passion for growing the creative economy and development of innovative talent in Massachusetts. Jason has a degree in public health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master's degree in city planning with an Urban Design Certificate from MIT. Jason worked for the mayor’s office and Department of Cultural Affairs in Chicago, and he was the staff urban planner and capital projects manager for the Department of Cultural Affairs in New York City. Jason has been involved in Leveraging Investments in Creativity (LINC), a ten-year national initiative to improve artists’ environment in the United States; his primary focus is the National Artist Space Initiative. Jason is graduate of the UMASS Center for Collaborative Emerging Leadership’s Cohort 2007 and was a recipient of the MIT Excellence in Public Service Award 2006.