Casey Steinbacher, Founder of Casey’s Company, is widely recognized as a national expert in urban innovation strategies.  Her company identifies and creates NEXT opportunities for communities and organizations, with a unique emphasis on place based talent recruitment.  She is credited with authoring the strategy that targeted entrepreneurs and millennials as key components for the place based renaissance of downtown Durham that CNN named the start up capital of the south.

Prior to founding her own company, Casey served as President and CEO of the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce from 2007 until 2015. Under her direction, the Durham Chamber received national and international acclaim for its leadership in economic and entrepreneurial development, winning the award for the Best Innovative Economic Development Project at the World Chambers Congress in Doha, Qatar, in 2013. Durham experienced over $5 billion in announced new investment that created more than 20,000 jobs during her tenure, including the birth and rapid growth of an entrepreneurial eco-system that is now considered one of the most vibrant in the South. 

A 27 year veteran of Chamber and Economic Development work, she also served as President and CEO of Chambers in Pennsylvania and Florida.

She sits on numerous boards but most notably serves on the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives Foundation, an international foundation created to help Chambers throughout the US and Canada strengthen their expertise and engagement in community and economic development initiatives in their communities. 

She is a regular speaker in topics that include Talent Recruitment and Development, Urban Re-imaging, Entrepreneurial Eco-Systems, Community Branding, Innovative Organizational Strategies, Woman in Leadership, Finding Next, and Coolness that Matters.