How business leaders approach Arizona’s challenges in chaotic political times

Neil Giuliano has worn a lot of hats over the course of his career. Among other jobs, he was the youngest person ever elected mayor of Tempe. He’s also served as the president of GLAAD, an LGBTQ advocacy group.

Giuliano is now in his 10th year as president and CEO of Greater Phoenix Leadership, which is made up of business executives from around the Valley.

He stopped by the KJZZ's studios in Tempe recently to tell The Show about his decade leading this group and what stands out to him about the years he’s spent in the job.

Full conversation

NEIL GIULIANO: I think one of the things that, that stands out is how the Valley has continued to evolve and continued to grow, embrace dealing with the challenges and try to work towards the aspirations for a better tomorrow.

I think of the, the issues we had to work on in education shortly after I arrived, really in the first few months that I took the position at Greater Phoenix Leadership, we were meeting with Gov. [Doug] Ducey and his team about Proposition 123 and going to the voters to get more money for K-12 education. That was a really big thing and then education, of course, has been a significant focus of Greater Phoenix leadership going all the way back to right after 9/11.

I think the other really significant and fortunate thing that has not stalled, although it had some fits and starts, was the infrastructure and making sure that what was Prop. 400 in 2004 was renewed by the voters in 2024 for transportation to continue to build our infrastructure to allow for the growth that's going to come for economic prosperity for places that people live within a few miles of a freeway, all of that.

As well as address the urbanization of the region, particularly the, the connection Phoenix, Tempe and Mesa, with regard to some forms of mass transit, be it a strong bus program, the light rail program, the streetcar program in Tempe, which hopefully in the future will extend further in Tempe and then further east to Mesa, those infrastructure issues were also very, very critical over the last decade.

MARK BRODIE: Let me ask you about the education piece because obviously Prop. 123, we're still kind of talking about that and debating it. The Legislature allowed it to expire. They couldn't agree on what to do to refer it back to the ballot.

So I wonder like what that says to you that some of these issues that, you know, you remember debating and trying to hash out 10 years ago we're still kind of in that same spot.

GIULIANO: Well, look, this is just my philosophical framework, not necessarily Phoenix leaderships, but look, our societies is at a different level of dysfunction. There is a new level of disruption in every level of politics and government and society, and that's just sort of what we have to deal with, right?

So you have to look for the wins that you can get, and you probably have to form new coalitions among people who are making public policy, and it's more challenging than it used to be, right? Because we find more people in the extremes politically and less people in the middle.

BRODIE: I want to ask you about sort of the business climate in the Valley, and I'm specifically curious because there's a lot of talk before you took over Greater Phoenix Leadership about the need for the Valley to sort of diversify its economy, especially after the Great Recession, and a lot of folks were saying too much growth, too much construction, reliance on those things.

Have we done a good enough job of diversifying the economy and making it more recession proof to the extent that a region can do that?

GIULIANO: Well, we have to start with the fact that it has diversified and we are no longer reliant on construction, on growth, on housing, you know, so the pure growth issues, right. Very intentionally and give credit to the folks over the last decade who have been very intentional about diversifying our economy.

We have to look at the university system, which is putting out more people now with degrees for engineering and other areas that are needed in our state. You know, if you talk to most of the CEOs and I, we have about 125 CEOs in Greater Phoenix leadership right now.

If you talk to most of them, the consensus will be workforce is our No. 1 issue. Where are our workers of the future going to come from? And worker meaning everyone from entry level line employees to executive employees. Where are they going to come from?

Today, we still don't produce enough of those folks in Arizona. We're still importing people to come to Arizona. Now that's a good thing, too, but that has impacts on your, on your overall economic plans as well because you have to produce housing that they can live in.

You have to have a transportation system that they can utilize. You have to have the programs and services and so forth for their young families in your community to attract them to this area. So business attraction and retention then gets heightened to a new level as well.

So has it diversified? Absolutely. It needed to diversify, it will continue to diversify. The question now is what will come after what we are now creating? And you can sort of think of this in 10-year increments.

It's not where we are today, but in another 10 years, in 2035, what will our position be? And what are we doing now to prepare for 2035, 2045?

BRODIE: Well, so when you look 10 years, 20 years out, what do you see, especially maybe as it relates to growth, because while the Valley is not as reliant on that as it once was, it's still a pretty big component of, of life in the Valley.

And you know, there's starting to be some questions about like how sustainable is this? Like, is there going to be energy? Is there going to be water? Is there going to be a way for people to afford to live here? So I'm curious what you see 10 years out.

GIULIANO: Well, the affordability is a separate question from the issue of infrastructure, which would include energy and water. We actually have some of the most solid and secure planning for energy and water of any state in the United States. So I'm, I'm confident that our water and energy issues, while there's still some hurdles we have to take on, on all of those things, of course, we have solid people working on those plans, those long-term plans.

The question really then becomes one of those, OK, so what's affordable and what's not for the people that we need to attract here? And that does become a question of making sure that we are beginning to localize some of those services.

So 10 years from now, here's one issue. What will the work from home status be? We hear that many employers are, quote unquote, calling people back into the office, but they're not calling them back into the office every day for every day, like a hybrid kind of thing, right? So how do you adjust to a permanent hybrid?

How do you adjust to more and more people being able to work from home, or from, from wherever they may be, right? And still be accountable and, and productive for the, the whatever institution it is that they're working for.

Those are the questions that we need to be thinking about and that we need to further evolve society for, into the future. Look, it's nothing like it was when I graduated from college in 1979, and it's nothing like even it was 15 or 20 years ago, and that's just the way it's going to be.

BRODIE: I'm curious in terms of the, you've sort of referenced how difficult governing can be right now. And you know, this is not just an Arizona problem or a Valley problem, but you know, politics are kind of divisive right now, and I wonder what kind of impact that has on especially your members like who are focused on trying to get things done. 

When you look at Congress, you look at the Legislature, and yes, of course they pass bills and do things, but sort of the general conventional wisdom is these are bodies that don't get a whole lot done.

GIULIANO: Well, let me put it this way, it might be OK that not everything is being done, that not everything is being addressed in a period of such high disagreement and high dysfunction where it's tough to find a solution that everybody can agree on.

You may have to agree that we're gonna have to wait on this one for a while and things will be more. I would say more cruise ship turning incremental over time versus speedboat change, right?

“Oh, we'll do this. No, we didn't know we should do this instead. No, we didn't like that so much. Let's go back over this way.” That's not good either.

BRODIE: I guess if it's going to be sort of that cruise ship mode, you just kind of have to hope that the issues that are aboard the cruise ship are not ones that are really pressing that have to be addressed like yesterday, right?

GIULIANO: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right. And that's always the challenge, right?

BRODIE: When you look out the next 10 years, what do you see as the biggest challenge that this region is going to have to deal with?

GIULIANO: I think housing is one of them. I think the overall issue of just sort of, live, work and play, and where do you want to do that. Obviously, you're going to continue to watch the growth in the southeast Valley and in the West Valley.

The really big things and the really important things are going to take time. And so you just have to go into it with that kind of an approach and bring people around you and pull people along with you as you're moving towards accomplishing those things.