Debbie Wasden

Debbie Wasden is Senior Vice President of Engagement at the Burning Glass Institute, where she works with employers, nonprofits, educators, and policymakers to turn BGI's data and tools into solutions that expand mobility, opportunity, and equity through skills.

Before joining BGI, she was a director at the Markle Foundation, where she led the employer, job insights, and national partnership workstreams of the Rework America Alliance. Earlier, she was a grant officer and strategist at Walmart.org, focusing on employer practice change and skills interoperability. She also spent seven years as an executive at the Business-Higher Education Forum, working with CEOs and university presidents on pressing talent challenges and leading projects for federal agencies and philanthropies. She began her career in the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science.

Debbie has written numerous reports on workforce needs in the digital economy, covering fields such as cybersecurity, data science, artificial intelligence, cloud, and AR/VR. Her work has led to more than 50 new industry-recognized college credentials. She co-led the Virginia Governor's Smart and Connected Communities Working Group, serves on the APLU Commission on Innovation, Competitiveness, and Economic Prosperity, and co-chaired APEC's Project DARE (Data Analytics Raising Employment). She holds a B.A. and M.A. from George Washington University.