Thomas L. Phillips
Executive Principal
TL Phillips Consulting Services
Thomas Phillips is the Executive Principal for TL Phillips Consulting Services, providing strategic and high-level professional management support, technical assistance and thought leadership to nonprofit and government organizations nationwide with an emphasis on workforce, economic and community development. He has over 35 years of management and leadership experience in strategic and regional planning, resource development, public policy/advocacy, board governance, project development, collective impact collaborations, and inter-jurisdictional policy management.
Mr. Phillips previously served more than 15 years as the President and CEO of Capital Workforce Partners (CWP), a $24M regional Workforce Development Board. He managed the complex and sensitive creation of a new and the state’s largest workforce board region resulting from the Governor’s consolidation directive. Mr. Phillips also elevated CWP from a poor performing and relatively unknown organization to a high performing, innovative, and nationally recognized Workforce Development Board. He secured more than $80M in new government and philanthropic grants and led innovative internal and external initiatives such as: creating a robust resource development focus, establishing a regional Adult Literacy Policy Board and securing a $1.5M Aspen National Opportunity Youth and Social Impact grant to develop a ‘collective impact” model.
Prior to his experience with CWP, Mr. Phillips held various senior management and leadership roles for more than 21 years at the City of Hartford, CT. He supervised public transportation operations, led community & economic project development, and managed a grants & loan portfolio of more than $140M from federal, state and local government funds as well as philanthropic sources. While at the city he also led efforts to secure both the $19M Hartford Job Corps Academy and $28M Youth Opportunity grant through the U.S. Department of Labor and funding from the U.S. Department of Commerce for the beginning renovation of the former Colt Armory, a National Historic Landmark.
Mr. Phillips has an extensive history of civic leadership. He is a founding stakeholder for the Community Transportation Association of America, he established the Connecticut Association for Community Transportation and was president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors Workforce Development Council. Mr. Phillips has received various leadership awards from both the National Association of Workforce Development Professionals and the National Workforce Association. Mr. Phillips also served/serves and held leadership positions on various advisory groups including the Boston Federal Reserve Bank’s Community Development Advisory Council, New England Knowledge Corridor, Governor’s American Resource Recovery Act TANF Task Force, Hartford Student Internship Program, Junior Achievement, and Manchester Economic Development Commission.
He has an MBA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, an MPA from the University of Hartford and a B.A. in Public Administration from Central Connecticut State University.
