The City of Glendale Office of Economic Development has a new talented team member to tout: Kristen Stephenson has joined the city as an Economic Development Specialist. Stephenson spent 12 years with the Greater Phoenix Economic Council (GPEC), where she provided crucial economic and competitive analyses, including tax policy, incentive analysis and economic impact modeling and was most recently GPEC’s leading Economic Analyst.

“Economic development is an engine for the city of Glendale and we are fortunate to have someone of Kristen’s intellectual acumen on our team who understands the Valley and state and the value of progress through business,” said Brian Friedman, Executive Director of Community and Economic Development. “Accurate, well-positioned market and economic information is critical to everything Glendale does to communicate our proposition, from engaging clients to reaching out to brokers and developers and Kristen’s expertise will help us continue to grow.”

While at GPEC she also oversaw and managed the daily activities of the organization’s research internship program and was responsible for tracking GPEC’s progress toward its goals. Stephenson has played an instrumental role in the development of the new Greater Phoenix Rising website in which she researched, organized and compiled vast amounts of data to fill the site and provided feedback on its creative direction. She earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Arizona State University and has actively participated in the Arizona Economic Roundtable, an association for business economists, for the past five years. Stephenson grew up in Glendale and currently resides in Glendale with her husband and two sons.

For more information about the Glendale Office of Economic Development, visit www.glendaleaz.com.