A Foundational Shift is Afoot 

Over the past few years, I’ve sensed a meaningful shift taking place across both the economic development and entrepreneurial ecosystem building fields.  

Conversations that once happened separately are increasingly beginning to intersect. Economic developers, ecosystem builders, workforce leaders, Main Street practitioners, educators, capital providers, and civic institutions are all navigating a growing recognition that the challenges communities face today are deeply interconnected. More and more, the language emerging around that work is the language of systems stewardship. 

What strikes me most about this moment is not simply the terminology itself. It is the recognition that many of the capabilities economic developers are increasingly being asked to cultivate — relationship-building, coordination, cross-sector alignment, trust-building, and network leadership — have also been emerging across the entrepreneurial ecosystem building field for years. 

Not because the two fields are identical. But because they are increasingly intersecting. And because the complexity of the challenges communities now face no longer allows any one sector, institution, or discipline to operate effectively in isolation. 

Economic Development Is Expanding 

For decades, economic development has played a critical role in helping communities grow through business attraction and development, infrastructure investment, workforce strategy, regional planning, and public-private collaboration. 

That work remains essential. 

And in many ways, economic development has always required leaders to work across interconnected systems. Business, workforce, education, infrastructure, housing, transportation, and community development have never truly operated independently from one another. What has increasingly changed over the past few years is the level of volatility and complexity within each of those systems themselves. 

Economic developers are now navigating constant shifts in policy, labor markets, technology, demographics, funding structures, political priorities, and economic conditions — all while trying to help communities remain resilient and competitive through change. In many ways, this represents a shift from transactional growth toward relational resilience. Economic developers are no longer simply being asked to attract projects or manage incentives. Increasingly, they are being asked to help steward interconnected systems that are themselves in a constant state of transition. 

That distinction matters. 

Because systems stewardship is not simply about managing more programs. It requires a deeper set of human and relational capabilities: the ability to convene unlikely partners, navigate ambiguity, build trust across sectors, facilitate alignment, adapt to changing conditions, and help communities coordinate through complexity. 

And perhaps most importantly, it requires recognizing that no single department, sector — or even strategy — can effectively solve these challenges alone. 

Stewarding Between Systems 

That may be one of the most important leadership shifts happening inside economic development today. Economic developers are not being asked to become experts in every system. They are being asked to become better stewards between systems. That requires leaders who can convene unlikely partners, facilitate shared understanding, align incentives across sectors, and help institutions recognize their interdependence more clearly. 

In many communities, this work is already happening. Economic developers are increasingly serving as translators between business, government, education, philanthropy, entrepreneurship support organizations, workforce systems, and community institutions. They are functioning less as isolated project managers and more as network leaders and civic coordinators. And yet many of the structures, metrics, and incentives supporting the field still primarily reward transactional outcomes rather than long-term systems health. 

That tension matters. Because some of the most important infrastructure in a community is not physical. It is relational. Communities rely not only on roads, buildings, and utilities, but also on: 

• Trust infrastructure 

• Coordination infrastructure 

• Learning infrastructure 

• Relationship infrastructure, and 

• Shared civic capacity. 

These forms of infrastructure are often invisible until they are absent. But they are what allow communities to collaborate effectively, adapt to change, and respond to complexity over time. 

What Ecosystem Builders Have Been Learning 

On a smaller scale, that reality is one entrepreneurial ecosystem builders have been learning firsthand for years. At its best, entrepreneurial ecosystem building has never been solely about startups. It has always been about cultivating environments where entrepreneurship can emerge and grow more effectively over time. 

That work often involves: 

• Aligning fragmented support organizations 

• Strengthening local networks and trust 

• Connecting entrepreneurs to resources and relationships 

• Coordinating capital pathways, and 

• Helping communities better understand the systems shaping entrepreneurial opportunity. 

Much of that work happens relationally. It involves helping people work across silos, align around shared goals, navigate tension, and build enough trust to move collective work forward over time. Not through isolated initiatives — but through ongoing stewardship of the broader environment entrepreneurs operate within. That is one reason the growing convergence between economic development and ecosystem building feels so significant right now. The two fields are increasingly approaching many of the same challenges from complementary directions. 

Where the Fields Differ 

At the same time, it is important not to collapse them into one another. 

Entrepreneurial ecosystem building and economic development systems stewardship are deeply connected, but they are not the same thing. Economic development systems stewardship operates across a broader civic and economic landscape. In that sense, entrepreneurial ecosystem building becomes one important component of a larger systems stewardship framework. And increasingly, communities need leaders who can understand how these systems interact — not as separate initiatives, but as interconnected conditions shaping long-term economic resilience and opportunity. 

At the same time, one of the opportunities in this moment is that economic developers do not need to build these capabilities entirely from scratch. 

Over the past two decades, entrepreneurial ecosystem builders have developed and tested many of the relational, network-based, and coordination-oriented approaches that systems stewardship now requires. The contexts may differ in scale and scope, but many of the underlying practices — convening across silos, building trust, facilitating alignment, strengthening connectivity, supporting collaborative learning, and navigating complexity — can be adapted and expanded into broader economic development practice. 

In many ways, ecosystem building offers a valuable proving ground for some of the human-centered leadership capabilities this next era of economic development will increasingly require. 

Building Capacity for the Next Era 

If systems stewardship is becoming part of the future of economic development, then the field itself will need new forms of leadership development and capacity-building. Not just new tools. New ways of thinking about leadership itself. 

The next generation of economic development leaders may increasingly need fluency in systems thinking, network leadership, facilitation, ecosystem development, collaborative governance, adaptive strategy, and long-term systems learning. Not because traditional economic development competencies no longer matter, but because the scope of the work itself is expanding. 

And over time, systems stewardship itself may even need to emerge as a more clearly defined area of specialization within the economic development field — much like workforce development, business attraction, real estate development, or data analytics evolved into dedicated areas of expertise. Because stewarding complex, interconnected systems requires its own set of capabilities, methods, and leadership practices.  

This is one reason I believe organizations like the International Economic Development Council and the ESHIP Alliance are entering such an important moment. 

The future likely requires stronger bridges between economic developers, entrepreneurial ecosystem builders, workforce leaders, educators, community organizations, Main Street practitioners, capital providers, policymakers, and civic institutions. Not because everyone must do the same work. But because the work itself is becoming more interconnected. 

What We’re Building Toward 

At the ESHIP Alliance, we’ve increasingly seen this reflected through the growth of the ESHIP Commons — a national platform connecting ecosystem builders, organizations, and field leaders across sectors and geographies. 

Through my work as Field Builder-in-Residence of the ESHIP Alliance and as Founder of WayBuilders, I’ve seen firsthand how communities are increasingly seeking not only strategies and programs, but stronger connective tissue between people, institutions, and systems. 

That may ultimately be the deeper opportunity emerging here. Not simply better coordination. But a more relational, resilient, and systems-aware model of economic development itself. The shift toward systems stewardship is not about abandoning the past. It is about evolving the field to meet the realities of the present. 

The future of economic development may depend on how well we learn to work across them together.  

Fay Horwitt serves as Field Builder-in-Residence at the ESHIP Alliance. She is also the  Founder of WayBuilders, a social enterprise fostering inclusive economic growth by transforming entrepreneurial ecosystems.