Robert Vincent Stefanowski (born May 21, 1962) is an American business executive and politician. Born and raised in

North Haven, Connecticut North Haven is a New England town, town in New Haven County, Connecticut, New Haven County, Connecticut on the outskirts of New Haven, Connecticut, New Haven, Connecticut. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, it had a population of 24, ...

, he is a former business executive of

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

, 3i Group plc,

UBS UBS Group AG is a multinational Investment banking, investment bank and financial services company founded and based in Switzerland. Co-headquartered in the cities of Zürich and Basel, it maintains a presence in all major financial centres ...

, and

Dollar Financial Group Money Mart Financial Services, formerly Dollar Financial Group, is a financial services company with over 600 locations in Canada and the U.S. The company offers a range of financial services, including installment loan, cash advance/payday loan, ...

. He resides in

Madison, Connecticut Madison is a town in the southeastern corner of New Haven County, Connecticut, United States, occupying a central location on Connecticut's Long Island Sound shoreline. The population was 17,691 at the 2020 census. Madison was first settled in 16 ...

. Stefanowski was the Republican Party nominee for

Governor of Connecticut The governor of Connecticut is the head of government of Connecticut, and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor has a duty to enforce state laws, and the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the Connecticu ...

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...

and

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...

, losing both times to Democrat

Ned Lamont Edward Miner Lamont Jr. (born January 3, 1954) is an American businessman and politician serving as the 89th governor of Connecticut. He has served in this position since January 9, 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a Greenwi ...

Early life

Stefanowski's father, Bob Stefanowski, was the scoreboard assistant for the

Yale Bowl The Yale Bowl Stadium is a college football stadium in the northeast United States, located in New Haven, Connecticut, on the border of West Haven, about 1½ miles (2½ km) west of the main campus of Yale University. The home of the American footb ...

. Stefanowski graduated from North Haven High School in 1980. He earned a

B.S. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...

accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the measurement, processing, and communication of financial and non financial information about economic entities such as businesses and corporations. Accounting, which has been called the "languag ...

from

Fairfield University Fairfield University is a private Jesuit university in Fairfield, Connecticut. It was founded by the Jesuits in 1942. In 2017, the university had about 4,100 full-time undergraduate students and 1,100 graduate students, including full-time ...

in 1984 and an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

in 1992. Stefanowski began as an auditor in

Hartford, Connecticut Hartford is the capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It was the seat of Hartford County until Connecticut disbanded county government in 1960. It is the core city in the Greater Hartford metropolitan area. Census estimates since the ...

for

PricewaterhouseCoopers PricewaterhouseCoopers is an international professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounting ...

after graduating from Fairfield University.

Business career

Stefanowski's tenure at General Electric began in 1994 where he held multiple senior roles through 2007. In 2003, Stefanowski became president and CEO of GE Commercial & Industrial Finance and then proceeded in 2004–2005 to serve as president and CEO of GE Telecom, Media & Technology Finance. Stefanowski worked at the

GE Capital GE Capital is the financial services division of General Electric. The company currently only runs one division, GE Energy Financial Services. It had provided additional services in the past; however, those units were sold between 2013 and 2018 ...

headquarters in

Norwalk, Connecticut , image_map = Fairfield County Connecticut incorporated and unincorporated areas Norwalk highlighted.svg , mapsize = 230px , map_caption = Location in Fairfield County, Connecticut, Fairfield County and ...

. From 2008 to 2011, Stefanowski was chairman and managing partner of 3i Group plc in

London, England London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major s ...

. He then served as chief financial officer of

, where he restructured the Investment Bank to meet

Basel III Basel III is the third Basel Accord, a framework that sets international standards for bank capital adequacy, stress testing, and liquidity requirements. Augmenting and superseding parts of the Basel II standards, it was developed in response to ...

regulatory requirements. From 2014 to 2017 he served as CEO of

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

and

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. From early 2019 to present, Stefanowski has been employed by and in senior leadership and decision-making positions with Neom, a controversial planned futuristic development in the northwest of Saudi Arabia totally owned by the Saudi Government Wealth Fund, PIF.

Political career

2018 campaign for governor

In September 2017, Stefanowski announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for governor of Connecticut in 2018. He campaigned on phasing out the state income tax, corporate income tax, reducing business entity taxes, and eliminating the

gift tax In economics, a gift tax is the tax on money or property that one living person or corporate entity gives to another. A gift tax is a type of transfer tax that is imposed when someone gives something of value to someone else. The transfer must ...

and the

estate tax An inheritance tax is a tax paid by a person who inherits money or property of a person who has died, whereas an estate tax is a levy on the estate (money and property) of a person who has died. International tax law distinguishes between an es ...

, in addition to using

zero-based budgeting Zero-based budgeting (ZBB) is a budgeting method that requires all expenses to be justified and approved in each new budget period. It was developed by Peter Pyhrr in the 1970s. This budgeting method analyzes an organization's needs and costs by ...

and creating a Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Stefanowski's tax-cut proposals were backed by Republican economic commentators

Arthur Laffer Arthur Betz Laffer (; born August 14, 1940) is an American economist and author who first gained prominence during the Reagan administration as a member of Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board (1981–1989). Laffer is best known for the Laf ...

and

Larry Kudlow Lawrence Alan Kudlow (born August 20, 1947) is an American conservative television personality and financial program host for the Fox network who served as the Director of the National Economic Council during the Trump Administration from 2018 ...

. During his campaign, Stefanowski pledged to oppose further gun-control measures in Connecticut. His campaign ran television commercials, beginning in January 2018, in the Hartford-New Haven and New York media markets; his ads criticized Democratic Governor

Dannel P. Malloy Dannel Patrick Malloy (; born July 21, 1955) is an American politician, who served as the 88th governor of Connecticut from 2011 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, he chaired the Democratic Governors Association from 2016 to 2017. On July ...

, promoting Stefanowski's economic proposals (co-authored with Laffer) and criticizing Malloy's acceptance of

publicly funded elections A publicly funded election is an election funded with money collected through income tax donations or taxes as opposed to private or corporate funded campaigns. It is a policy initially instituted after Nixon for candidates to opt into publicly f ...

. ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' reported that Stefanowski funded his campaign with a combination of fundraising and his own money, but that he had declined to state how much of his own money he would spend. He received endorsements from former Republican competitor Peter Lumaj, state representative Noreen Kokoruda, state senator

Len Suzio Leonard F. Suzio Jr. (born January 4, 1948) is an American politician from Connecticut. Personal life Suzio attended the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Shortly after graduation, he married Kathryn. Suzio was active in the C ...

, former U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker, Middletown Planning and Zoning Commissioner Tyrell Brown, Middletown Board of Education member Edward Ford, Jr., and

Shelton Shelton may refer to: Places United Kingdom *Shelton, North Bedfordshire, in the parish of Dean and Shelton, Bedfordshire *Lower Shelton, in the parish of Marston Moretaine, Bedfordshire *Upper Shelton, in the parish of Marston Moretaine, Bedfor ...

Mayor Mark Lauretti. At the May 2018 state Republican convention at

Foxwoods Resort Casino Foxwoods Resort Casino is a hotel and casino complex owned and operated by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation on their reservation located in Ledyard, Connecticut. Including six casinos, the resort covers an area of . The casinos have more t ...

Mashantucket, Connecticut Mashantucket is a census-designated place (CDP) in the northeast part of the town of Ledyard, New London County, Connecticut, United States. It consists of land held by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe. The Foxwoods Resort Casino Foxwoods Resort ...

, the party endorsed

Danbury Danbury is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, located approximately northeast of New York City. Danbury's population as of 2022 was 87,642. It is the seventh largest city in Connecticut. Danbury is nicknamed the "Hat City ...

Mayor

Mark Boughton Mark D. Boughton (born February 20, 1964) is an American politician who was the longest-serving mayor in Danbury, Connecticut's history. He served ten consecutive terms as mayor, from 2001 to 2020. He was the Republican endorsed candidate for g ...

; Stefanowski attended the convention but bypassed the formal vote, opting not to place his name into nomination. Stefanowski secured a spot on the Republican primary ballot by collecting the requisite number of signatures. In August 2018 primary, Stefanowski won the Republican nomination, receiving 29.4% of the vote, surpassing Boughton (21.3%), David Stemerman (18.3%), Tim Herbst (17.6%), and Steve Obsitnik (13.4%). Following Stefanowski's nomination, on August 15, 2018,

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

endorsed the campaign. In the November 2018, general election, Stefanowski was narrowly defeated by Democrat

2022 campaign for governor

On January 19, 2022, Stefanowski declared his intent to run for

governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

again in the 2022 election. He won the Republican nomination at convention on May 6, 2022, with Laura Devlin selected as his running mate. On November 8, 2022, Stefanowski lost the general election to incumbent Governor Ned Lamont in a rematch of their 2018 race, this time with a 13% margin.

Electoral history

Personal life

Stefanowski lives in Madison with his wife, Amy, and his three daughters. His first book ''Making M&A Deals Happen'' was published by McGraw Hill Publishing in February 2007. He is a Wharton Fellow, and has served as adjunct faculty to

NYU Stern New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

London Business School London Business School (LBS) is a business school and a constituent college of the federal University of London. LBS was founded in 1964 and awards post-graduate degrees (Master's degrees in management and finance, MBA and PhD). Its motto is " ...

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, and as a visiting professor of management practice at

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

. Stefanowski is a

Certified Public Accountant Certified Public Accountant (CPA) is the title of qualified accountants in numerous countries in the English-speaking world. It is generally equivalent to the title of chartered accountant in other English-speaking countries. In the United Sta ...

(CPA) and

Chartered Financial Analyst The Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) program is a postgraduate professional certification offered internationally by the American-based CFA Institute (formerly the Association for Investment Management and Research, or AIMR) to investment and fina ...

(CFA).

References

External links

Campaign website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stefanowski, Bob 1962 births 21st-century American businesspeople 21st-century American politicians 3i Group people American people of Polish descent Businesspeople from Connecticut Candidates in the 2018 United States elections Connecticut Republicans Cornell University alumni Fairfield University alumni General Electric people Living people People from North Haven, Connecticut PricewaterhouseCoopers people American chief executives CFA charterholders