The CEO of Jefferson Health and Thomas Jefferson University will be the local chamber of commerce’s next chair, and he’s focused on a feeling of safety in the city.
Joseph G. Cacchione, Jefferson’s CEO since 2022, will chair the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia’s board of directors beginning Oct. 15, the chamber announced Tuesday.
The new role comes just a year after Cacchione said Jefferson could move its headquarters out of the city. But now he says that’s no longer on the table, crediting Mayor Cherelle L. Parker and the city’s police chief for making “great strides in improving safety.”
“We’re here. We’re Jefferson. We’ve been in Center City for 200 years. We’re not moving,” he said in an interview Tuesday.
Cacchione says some of the region’s remaining challenges can be tackled through partnerships between business and government.
“For me it’s about never standing back and watching but to actually roll your sleeves up and get in there and mix it up,” he said.
Jefferson teamed up with the city police department and SEPTA transit police in one such partnership in June, launching a public safety hub in partnership in Market East.
“East Market Street particularly has had challenges over the years,” he said Tuesday. “We saw an opportunity to have more visible police presence.”
But recently, he said, the area has felt safer and more vibrant. He pointed to the pop-up businesses that opened along that corridor this year, as well as the pop-up plaza outside Reading Terminal Market.
“We continue to need to work on that quality of life,” he said. “It’s not just East Market Street. It’s the entire city that we want to be safer.”
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More good jobs for the region
Cacchione’s priorities also include supporting small and medium-sized businesses, continuing regional job growth, and improving access to healthcare.
The chamber’s board of directors includes CEOs, presidents, and other leaders of area institutions such as CHOP, Aramark, Temple University, Comcast, Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania, and the Philadelphia Eagles.
Its recent efforts include a new regional partnership to create good jobs in business software, biomedical engineering, and production, and specialized manufacturing, where business leaders see potential to grow. Jefferson Health and Thomas Jefferson University are early partners in the group.
“We are at an inflection point for our region, and we have to make decisions to lean in so that we can continue to grow,” Chamber CEO Chellie Cameron said Tuesday. “I’m talking about attracting new businesses and growing existing businesses, creating jobs — not just any job, but opportunity jobs and pathways to those jobs.”
Cacchione, as the leader of a very large employer in Center City, “gets it,” Cameron said, adding that he’s not just invested in the city, but the region as a whole.
Cacchione added that AI will “change how we do business,” calling it an “enabler of business.” The chamber could help train workforces that don’t have experience with AI, he said.
Jefferson employees have been adopting AI tools to improve efficiency. Nurses use it for note-taking, he said. By 2028, Jefferson aims to save over 10 million hours of clinician’s time by using AI — creating more time for “face-to-face” interaction with patients, Cacchione said.
The hoped-for result, he said: “Our doctors are spending more time with patients and less time in front of a computer.”
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