DJ Vogt MBA’01 MPP’02: Building Trust Where Business and Government Meet

DJ Vogt MBA’01 MPP’02 has spent his career working in the rooms where public priorities, business decisions and economic policy come together.

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As Head of State and Local Government Affairs for the West Region at SAP Americas, DJ leads the company’s government affairs strategy across 19 Western states, with a focus on issues that include artificial intelligence, privacy, cybersecurity and procurement modernization. His work centers on helping public sector leaders understand how technology can support better outcomes for governments and communities.

That role builds on more than two decades of experience across government, business advocacy and corporate public affairs. DJ began his policy career in legislative affairs at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, then moved to Oregon for family reasons to work on economic and business development policy in the governor’s chief financial office. He later held leadership roles with Oregon Business & Industry, Swire Coca-Cola and Intel, where he helped advance major policy and economic development initiatives, including state support for semiconductor expansion during a pivotal moment for the industry.

Across those roles, DJ has learned how much depends on trust. Government and business often approach the same challenge from different starting points, but DJ sees his work as helping both sides understand where their interests overlap and what they can achieve when they engage honestly.

That perspective took shape at Sanford, where DJ found mentors who brought real experience into the classroom and helped him understand how policy gets made beyond theory. Today, he carries that influence into his own approach to leadership and mentorship, including his involvement with the Sanford Mentor Program.

In the conversation below, DJ reflects on the Sanford professor who helped shape his career, the policy questions that will matter most in the years ahead, and why he believes honest collaboration between business and government remains essential.

What impact has Sanford had on your professional and/or personal journey?

Sanford gave me something no textbook could: access to people who had actually done the work. Dick Stubbing, a Professor of the Practice and my Master's Project advisor, is the clearest example. Dick came out of the Reagan Office of Management and Budget — old school, no-nonsense, and completely uninterested in theory for its own sake. He had a real-world perspective on how Washington actually functions, and he didn't sugarcoat it. He became an early-career mentor, and his influence inspired me to take a position at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. That trajectory shaped everything that followed. I carry Dick's candor with me into every room I walk into.

Why does public policy matter in 2026 and beyond?

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Because the decisions being made right now will set the terms for the next decade — and most people don't realize it's happening. AI governance, federal fiscal sustainability, how states compete for private investment — these aren't abstract debates. They determine where companies expand, where jobs land, and whether government institutions can keep pace with the economy they're supposed to serve. The gap between the speed of change and the policy's capacity to respond is what concerns me most. AI is being deployed across every sector while state legislatures are still figuring out the vocabulary. That's exactly why people with serious policy training need to be in the room — not just as advocates for narrow interests, but as honest brokers who understand how the system works and what it costs when it doesn't.

What is the most interesting highlight so far in your career?

Securing an unprecedented cash grant from the State of Oregon for Intel's expansion — while the CHIPS and Science Act was moving through Congress — ranks at the top. It was one of those rare moments where state and federal policy converged in real time, and I was sitting at the intersection of both. On the state side, we had to make the case that an eight-figure public investment in a private company was the right call for Oregon's economy. On the federal side, the CHIPS Act was reshaping domestic semiconductor policy in ways not seen since the Cold War. Getting both pieces to land required building trust on multiple fronts: with skeptical legislators, with executives who wanted certainty, and with a public watching how their tax dollars were deployed. That deal put Oregon on the semiconductor map in a lasting way.

Terry Sanford implored students to “stand for something.” What do you stand for?

I stand for the idea that business and government can work together honestly — and that when they don't, everyone loses. The private sector sometimes treats government as an obstacle to be managed. Government sometimes treats business as a revenue source to be extracted. Both instincts corrode trust and produce bad outcomes. What I've tried to do across my career — from the Governor's chief financial office to Intel to SAP — is operate as someone who tells both sides the truth, even when it's inconvenient. The public interest and the business interest are not always the same thing, but they overlap more than cynics on either side want to admit. Finding that overlap, and building durable policy around it, is the work I care about most.

What seeds of change are you planting in your community?

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Mentorship is where I start — including through the Sanford Mentor Program, which brought this conversation full circle. If I can give a current student what Dick Stubbing gave me — an unvarnished view of how things actually work, and the confidence to go find out for themselves — that's worth every minute.

For several years, I also coached girls' youth lacrosse, and that experience left a mark on me I didn't fully anticipate. Teaching young athletes the game — the discipline, the teamwork, the resilience it takes to compete — turned out to be as rewarding for me as I hope it was for them. A number of those players have gone on to play at prominent Division I women's programs, and watching their journeys from the sidelines is genuinely one of the highlights of my life outside of work. Coaching ended a few years ago, but I still follow their careers with great pride.

Both experiences — mentoring in policy and coaching on the field — come down to the same thing: investing in people early, before the outcome is certain, because you believe in what they're capable of becoming.