washington business
In Their Words
Joe Nguyễn aims to revolutionize state government as the new director of the Washington State Department of Commerce. He recently talked to AWB about his goals for Commerce, how Washington employers can thrive during uncertain times, and his favorite playlist. The interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Can you tell us about your background in business?
I come from an immigrant family, and as a kid, my family owned a billiards hall. When I was in college, my sister opened a restaurant, and I was the dishwasher. I worked in banking for a long time at UBS. From there, I worked at startups and then at Expedia and Microsoft. People know me as a legislator and now as the director of Commerce, but that’ s all new. Going from small, family-owned businesses to large Fortune 100 companies and then to Commerce has been an interesting experience, to say the least.
You began your tenure as director of Commerce in January. What are your goals and priorities for the agency?
Commerce manages 485 programs with an $ 8 billion budget. These resources don’ t belong to us. They belong to the people of Washington state. Our job is to do a good job managing their resources. Commerce builds. We build energy, housing and communities. We’ re also building infrastructure and processes to help us do these things in a more effective way. We recently sent out a customer satisfaction survey and held 40 in-person and virtual listening sessions. We got great feedback around what we could do better, and we’ re trying to implement that. I want to make it easy to work with Commerce. I want to partner with businesses to make sure that what we’ re doing is aligned with their work. But my goals at Commerce go beyond Commerce. I want to modernize the way government works. I want to show what is possible when government is doing it right and you get the right people in the right room.
What did you learn from your time in the private sector that has benefited you as you transitioned to the public sector?
One of the most critical things for us at Commerce is for people to have confidence in our work. If you don’ t have confidence and you don’ t have trust, nothing else matters. When you have a business, you are beholden to your customers. Our customers are Washington state residents. A lot of the infrastructure and oversight that we’ re putting in isn’ t because I want to have more bureaucracy. It’ s because I want to make sure that people have confidence in how we’ re doing things. You have to be a bit entrepreneurial in terms of how you engage to make that happen.
You previously served as a state senator. How has this experience prepared you for your current role?
I was privileged to work on a lot of the investments made in the Legislature over the past few years as a budget writer, and many of them ended up at
Joe NguyỄn
Commerce. For most legislators, the bill signing is the last step. I’ ve always thought that you should work with the agencies to make sure the bill is implemented well. Going from the Legislature, where you have all these ideas and thoughts, to Commerce, where you implement them, has been a phenomenal experience.
You sponsored the bill that created the state’ s Artificial Intelligence Task Force in 2024. How do you see AI impacting Washington employers?
If you look at the history of innovation in Washington state, whether it’ s timber, aerospace, technology, e-commerce or coffee, we have always been an incubator for greatness. AI is on that list. Washington state has 23 % of the AI talent in the whole United States. How do we use this new tool to make us as a state more successful? It certainly will be disruptive, but hopefully we’ re able to use it to better leverage our time, augment the work that we’ re doing, and provide more value or services to our communities. We have to be mindful of potential impacts on our workforce, but I think it’ s going to unlock things that we did not know were available to us until now.
20 association of washington business