In this video, ICF Co-Founder Lou Zacharilla speaks with James Stifler, Chief Economic Officer of Hudson, Ohio, USA - a Top7 Intelligent Community of 2020.

As a 25-year resident of Hudson, James Stifler has chosen to perform his encore career as the City of Hudson’s Chief Economic Officer. After a successful 33-year career as a Wall Street executive, Jim is able to showcase his extensive private sector experiences and use his strong ties in the community to move the City forward.

In addition to attraction and retention, Jim provides strategic oversight to Hudson’s rapidly growing, city - owned, fiber-optic broadband business.

Jim’s most gratifying work as Chief Economic Officer has been in conjunction with Hudson’s Chief Innovation Officer by leading the charge to become an Intelligent Community, and to expand and capitalize on the innovation bias Hudson is blessed to have. It was a tremendous boost to be named to the ICF’s Top7 Intelligent Communities for 2019 and 2020.

To compliment all of these efforts Jim works with innovative start-ups and scale-ups that have qualified for mentoring support at JumpStart Inc. JumpStart is a public /private business acceleration program in Northeast Ohio, that is now 2 decades strong.