Stefani Pashman
Stefani Pashman is the chief executive officer of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development and its affiliates – the Greater Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce, the Pennsylvania Economy League of Greater Pittsburgh, LLC and the Pittsburgh Regional Alliance. For nearly 80 years, the Conference, one of the United States’ foremost civic leadership organizations, has been bringing together public and private sector leaders to improve the economic future and quality of life in the 10-county Pittsburgh region. Since she assumed the role on October 2, 2017, Stefani has repositioned and restructured the organization to advance the creation of a next generation economy for all.
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Under her leadership, the Conference navigated the COVID-19 pandemic, serving as an indispensable resource for information about public health and state and federal programs designed to stabilize the region’s employers, setting a post-pandemic trajectory for inclusive growth. The strategy included a focus on building key economic clusters with the potential to power the regional economy into the future.
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The Conference has also implemented a framework for accelerating decarbonization, investment and inclusive growth in the Pittsburgh region. Stefani was instrumental in convening an 11-county coalition that received a $62.7 million Build Back Better Regional Challenge grant to create a robotics and autonomy cluster, one of only 21 applicants to receive funding, recognized by The Brookings Institution as being among the “most equitable” proposals for its strategy to connect emerging opportunity to urban and rural areas. The award represents the first federal grant award in Allegheny Conference history.
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Stefani has reinvigorated the Conference’s focus on regional and demographic equity, appointing the organization’s first chief equity officer in 2021, and advancing accessible and equitable opportunity for all people and all communities across southwestern Pennsylvania through implementation of Inclusive Growth Principles to assure that diversity, equity and inclusion guide decision-making.
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During her tenure, the Conference has brought to fruition such long-standing priorities as the reduction of Pennsylvania’s corporate net income tax to improve the competitiveness of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, a phase down started in 2023, and celebrated the opening of Shell Polymers Monaca. The multi-billion-dollar polyethylene manufacturing complex capped a decade of work by the Conference and affiliates, providing a foundation for the development of carbon capture and underground storage and hydrogen solutions critical to the economic future and quality of life of the region.
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Before joining the Conference, Stefani served as CEO of Partner4Work and its predecessor, the Three Rivers Workforce Investment Board (3RWIB) – a complex nonprofit organization that educates the region on labor market dynamics, funds public and private workforce programs and connects local employers with qualified talent. Stefani transformed the organization from a $1.5 million research-based organization into an almost $20 million public-private system that relies on research and analytics to make change in the community.
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Prior to entering the workforce field, Stefani spent many years in healthcare, in both policy and strategy roles, serving in Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell’s administration for almost seven years at the PA Department of Human Services as director of policy and as special assistant to the secretary, leading policy changes in human service programs, primarily Medicaid. She has also worked in private consulting at Avalere Health and Navigant and as an analyst in the White House Office of Management and Budget.
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Stefani holds an MBA and a master’s in health administration from the University of Michigan and a B.A. from Washington University in St. Louis.
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She is active in numerous national and local organizations, having served on the Federal Reserve Board of Cleveland, Pittsburgh Board. Her current board service includes Vibrant Pittsburgh and the Heinz History Center. Stefani and her husband reside in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh and are parents to three children.