Christina Winn

Director of Business Investment
Arlington Economic Development

Panel: The Case for Technology-Rich Regions

This session will examine how technology solutions deployed by both governments and private enterprise to solve public challenges can create economic opportunity, attract residents and investors, and improve the user/citizen experience

About Christina

Christina Winn is the Director of Business Investment for Arlington Economic Development. Since 2014, she’s led Arlington’s efforts in business retention, national recruitment, entrepreneur support and catalyzing the innovation economy. Her division serves as the first point of contact for companies looking to expand or relocate. She oversees a variety of programs and services to help diversify the County’s business base, foster a collaborative business environment and build capacity of local entrepreneurs.

Upon arriving in Arlington, Christina was faced with record high office vacancy over 21% due to the Base Realignment and Closing process (BRAC), sequestration, and national market trends. Three years later, the vacancy rate has stabilized and is on a downward trend. Under her leadership, her team has recruited and retained 182 companies totaling 14 million square feet of office space and 72,000 jobs. Notable projects include the retention of Corporate Executive Board, Applied Predictive Technologies, and Opower, as well as the recruitment of Amazon’s 2nd Headquarters, Lidl U.S. HQ, and Nestle U.S. HQ to Arlington.

Christina has more than 15 years of experience in economic development and real estate finance and development. She was a leader in finance and acquisitions for Comstock Homebuilding Cos. Christina has also had the opportunities to lead economic development teams in other great communities such as Loudoun County, VA and the City of Phoenix, AZ. There she enjoyed working on diverse programs and public/private partnerships in redevelopment, downtown development, foreign trade zones, business recruitment, main street programs and small business development. Christina has also been an entrepreneur and had her own publishing company, Z Idea Factory, specializing in providing opportunities for young authors to write and be published in the national markets. Christina received her B.S. in Economics from Arizona State University and a M.S. in Real Estate Development from Johns Hopkins University and enjoys being an Arlington resident.