mike grella

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founder

grella partnership strategies (GPS)

Mike Grella, founder, Grella Partnership Strategies, brings 25 years of domain expertise and experience in community, economic and workforce development, business site selection, public finance, tax law and public policy as an attorney and advisor.

Mike spent the first 17 years of his career advising hundreds of clients on including some of the world's most recognizable brands on economic development strategy and expansion transactions.

In March 2012, Amazon.com recruited Mike to build and lead its Global Economic Development team from the ground up in Seattle. Over seven years, the team created public-private partnerships representing over $10B dollars of capital investment and over 100,000 new jobs spanning over two dozen U.S. States and 15 countries.

Mike led economic development during a period of unprecedented growth of Amazon's e-commerce fulfillment business and the birth of its Last Mile delivery network in the U.S collaborating with hundreds of state, regional and local partners to construct over 50 million sq. ft of new development.

In 2016, Mike spearheaded the economic development function for Amazon Web Services, Amazon's Cloud Computing/Hyperscale Global Data Center business and most profitable business segment. Mike pioneered and crafted the company's use of economic, fiscal, and community impact studies to communicate the benefits of investments to policymakers, regulators, and community stakeholders.

In March 2019, Mike formed Grella Partnership Strategies (GPS), a global advisory firm of bar raising experts and pioneers built upon the pillars of diversity, equity and inclusion, resilience, community-based policy making and environmental stewardship. GPS drives value to organizations through creation of bold vision statements, future forward policies, strategies and facilitating transactions that catalyze broad-based prosperity.