By Erin Davis | AzBigMedia
Who better to offer perspective than someone who has been there from the start?
“Greater Phoenix has morphed from its status of a third-tier economy in the 1980s into a highly desirable, high-value added business location in the 21st Century economy,” says Ioanna Morfessis, consultant with IO-INC. and founding president and CEO of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council (GPEC).
Morfessis is the ideal person to summarize the big picture of an economically desirable Arizona in attracting new and growing business. Morfessis was the founding president and CEO of GPEC in 1989 and she helped develop one of the first private-public regional economic development organizations in the nation. In a single quote she has offered a 21st Century snapshot — or selfie since its 2017 — of Greater Phoenix, a once third-class passenger, making her way to the upper decks. Phoenix is no longer simply touted as the “low-cost alternative” to other markets.
Over the last few decades Phoenix has continued to rise from a cost-effective location in which to do business, to a competitive economic market composed of a skilled workforce, thriving public-private partnerships, solid educational institutions including the leading university for innovation (two years running) and much more. Rather than try to squeeze in one last analogy, let’s zoom out from the snapshot, back to the big economic picture.
