Meet Jeff Nelson: Executive Vice President

Risk mitigator, international guru, Champion of the Baltic States

Jeff Nelson is the executive point for several S³ customers while leading the S³ team of 250-plus employees and consultants in Richmond and Philadelphia, and S³’s Detroit branch. He also happens to be the executive point for S3I, S³’s international operations headquartered in Vilnius, Lithuania. It’s something he’s well suited to do.

Career inspiration came to Jeff early; while in college, he met leaders of the freedom movement for Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Their work influenced Jeff’s studies and his first career, where he built relations with these countries as they navigated their first years of independence after 50 years of Soviet occupation.

Jeff leads S³’s efforts by helping global companies to establish and grow near-shore centers. He has helped build S³’s reputation in the region as a trusted, well-regarded partner of the government in business development and in creating jobs and career opportunities for Lithuanian citizens.

In fact, Jeff and S³ have played a firsthand role in dramatically developing the economy in Lithuania, creating thousands of Western-esque jobs for nationals so they could remain in or return to their home country. In 2015, he was appointed as one of 23 honorary consuls, representing the U.S. in Lithuania.

Jeff embraces the S³ culture where rules and regulations don’t crowd out entrepreneurialism, mistakes are opportunities to learn, and customers and consultants always come first. He embodies and promotes that culture in Vilnius, Richmond, Philadelphia and Detroit. He believes in listening to customers about their fears, identifying their perceived risks, and designing a solution to mitigate those risks. That often means S³ managing them for their customers.

Closer to the heart and home, Jeff values the opportunity to support causes he cares about. He volunteers with and supports a handful of charitable organizations in Detroit, in his hometown of Richmond, and in Lithuania. He is an active board member of CodeVA, a non-profit organization that promotes computer science and computer programming across Virginia. He is a volunteer and supporter of the Richmond mayor’s Youth Academy, the chairman of the workforce development committee of Richmond Business Council, as well as, a member the American-Lithuanian Business Council and past board member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Lithuania.

For fun, he enjoys exploring Richmond’s cultural institutions, as well as traveling abroad with his wife and two young children.