Mark has held positions in a Hawaii life science start-up, a major Silicon Valley computer technology company in addition to economic development positions in several global trade and inward investment organizations. Mark has a proven track record in: strategic & partner relations; sales and marketing; product development; corporate strategy; and financing including venture & strategic. Prior to DBEDT, Mark held a key management executive position advising a Hawaii-based life science company on operations and business strategy. He led the business development efforts for the markets of human and animal nutrition including aquaculture; cosmetic ingredients and biofuels. Mark also drove strategic partner, customer acquisition and fundraising programs at the company.
In Silicon Valley Mr. Ritchie was a Vice President at Scottish Development International in San Jose, California where he successfully promoted Scotland as an investment location to senior management of high technology companies. He also account managed many of the most important existing foreign investors in Scotland, including Sun Microsystems, Intel, Micron, Cisco, Agilent, Atmel, and National Semiconductor. Before this, he was a strategic relations manager and a product manager at SGI (Silicon Graphics), the high performance computing company in Mountain View, California. There, he led a cross-functional team to launch the company’s first 64-bit Intel (Itanium) processor based workstation. Mark also spent a number of years as a business development manager at the Canadian Trade Office in San Francisco and in San Jose, assisting mostly Canadian technology companies seeking partnerships and venture capital in Silicon Valley. He holds a BA with high honors in political economy from UC Berkeley and a Master’s degree in International Business and Economics from the Fletcher School, Tufts/Harvard Universities.
The recently passed Federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 authorized a community economic development program called the Opportunity Zones Program. This initiative provides incentives for investors to re-invest realized capital gains into Opportunity Funds in exchange for temporary tax deferral and other benefits. The Opportunity Funds are then used to provide investment capital in certain low-income communities, i.e., Opportunity Zones. Hawaii designated 25 census tracts as Opportunity Zones. Come learn about this new initiative and how various stakeholders can get involved. More information on Hawaii’s Opportunity Zones and this initiative can be found at: https://invest.hawaii.gov/oz/.
Mark Ritchie joined the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT) five years ago as the Branch Chief for Business Support services. Mark’s branch has responsibility for the Enterprise Zone and the CBED (Community-based Economic Development) programs, which includes promoting Hawaii’s Opportunity Zones. Prior to DBEDT Mark served in the following positions: Chief Business Development Officer at Kuehnle AgroSystems, Inc., a Hawaii life science start-up; Managing Director at Enterprise Honolulu (EH), a private sector Oahu economic development agency; Product Manager at SGI (SiIicon Graphics), a high performance computing company; and various economic development positions in several global trade and inward investment organizations.
Best Regards,
Mark J. Ritchie
Branch Chief, Business Support Branch
Business Development and Support Division
State of Hawaii, Dept. of Business, Economic Development & Tourism