Caren Merrick has served as Secretary of Commerce and Trade for the Commonwealth of Virginia since January of 2022.  She oversees 13 agencies with 1,300 team members and a $3B budget.  Caren leads economic growth through a variety of initiatives and agencies to generate an environment that makes Virginia the best place to start, grow, or relocate a business.  Agencies include the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation, Virginia Housing, Virginia Energy, Activation Capital, Small Business Finance Authority, and Virginia Tourism. 

Merrick is a business leader in Virginia with over 25 years of experience launching growth companies and reinventing businesses.  

In the private sector, Caren is known as a strategic and entrepreneurial leader. She co-founded enterprise software company webMethods, growing it from zero to $200m and the most successful software IPO in history at offering.  webMethods was sold to SoftwareAG for nearly $600m.  She was the founder and CEO of Pocket Mentor, a mobile app delivering leadership tools.  She is a partner in NextGen Venture Partners investing in category defining early stage companies.  

Caren has served on boards of public and private growth companies with combined assets of $12B and revenues of $3B across a variety of sectors, specializing in private equity, financial services, and REITs. She has been named a Top 500 Business Influencer by Virginia Business Magazine. 

Merrick was the founding CEO of the Virginia Ready Initiative, a public-private partnership co-founded by then co-CEO of the Carlyle Group Glenn Youngkin and his wife Suzanne Youngkin in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Caren stood up the organization in eight weeks and oversaw $10 million in funding to mitigate the economic hardships created by the pandemic and resultant labor shortages. Partners included leading companies such as EY, Bank of America, SAIC, Genworth Financial, PwC, Sentara Health, Huntington Ingalls, Carillion Clinic along with the Virginia Community College System. Virginia Ready has helped over 7,000 Virginians undertake accelerated credential courses for in-demand skills in technology, healthcare, manufacturing, and skilled trades.   

Caren has been a board member at several non-profit boards, including the webMethods Foundation, which she co-founded and that went on to make grants to entrepreneurial nonprofits that help low income families achieve their potential.   Over 50,000 people in the Washington Metropolitan region benefitted. Caren also served six years as a board director for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, and served on the board of the DC Chapter of the International Women’s Forum. 

Merrick grew up in a rural community and is the first woman in her family to earn a college degree, working to support herself through community college and earning a B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles. 

A Virginia resident since 1988, Caren and her husband, Phillip have been married for 30 years.  They have two adult sons.