Ellen Harpel is the president of Business Development Advisors LLC (BDA), an economic development and market intelligence consulting firm, and founder of Smart Incentives (http://www.smartincentives.org/), which helps communities make sound decisions throughout the economic development incentives process. BDA works with economic development leaders at the local, state and national levels to increase business investment and job growth in their communities by providing insight into the growth drivers of today’s economy; establishing data-driven policies and practices; and delivering business intelligence on target industries and companies. Smart Incentives helps economic development organizations achieve better outcomes by providing processes and solutions that make incentives easier to manage. We have developed Smart Incentives because we believe that it is vital for economic development groups to have access to high-quality business intelligence, data and analytical tools in order to make the best decisions for their communities. Smart Incentives is at the forefront of efforts to develop better ways to monitor compliance and evaluate the effectiveness of incentive programs.Our recent projects have addressed economic development strategic planning, effective incentive use, and program evaluation. Dr. Harpel is a Senior Research Fellow with the Center for Regional Economic Competitiveness and an affiliate with the Center for Regional Analysis at GMU. She is a member of IEDC, C2ER, CDFA, and VEDA.Economic development, professional and business services, service economy, regional economics, due diligence, strategic planning, competitive intelligence, incentives