Don Cunningham has been President and CEO of the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation (LVEDC) since July 2012. Prior to leading the region’s economic development organization, Mr. Cunningham served in a variety of key public and private positions for more than three decades in the Lehigh Valley and Pennsylvania, working on most of the region’s major economic and cultural developments since 1995.

Cunningham was twice-elected Mayor of Bethlehem, twice-elected Lehigh County Executive, and the appointed Pennsylvania Secretary of the Department of General Services in Governor Ed Rendell’s administration, where he oversaw $4 billion of government operations.

Cunningham is credited with playing a lead role in the economic and cultural renaissance of the Lehigh Valley, which includes the principal cities of Allentown, Bethlehem, and Easton, and of the transformation of the region’s economy from heavy industry to a diversified economic base with an annual GDP of more than $57 billion, which exceeds that of several U.S. states.

Most recently, the Lehigh Valley, comprised of Lehigh and Northampton counties, has attracted two multi-billion-dollar manufacturing investments, including a $3.5 billion Eli Lilly and Company pharmaceutical plant that will employ 850 workers and a $1.2 billion Chobani production facility that will employ 900 workers. The Lilly project is the region’s largest economic development project and Pennsylvania’s largest single life sciences investment.

During Cunningham’s tenure at LVEDC, the region is a regular in the top ten list of America’s mid-size markets for economic development, ranking first in the nation in both 2023 and 2025 for economic growth among regions with populations under 1 million.

Prior to his public sector career, Cunningham worked for the Fortune 500 company PPL in Allentown and served in the Moravian University administration in Bethlehem. He started his career as a newspaper reporter in Bethlehem and Philadelphia and contributes a monthly column on business and economics to The Morning Call newspaper in Allentown.

Cunningham earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism with a minor in government in 1987 from Shippensburg University and a Master of Arts degree in political science from Villanova University in 1991, where he graduated summa cum laude.