Debra A. Cafaro is an American business executive who has been CEO of Ventas, Inc. since 1999.

Personal life

Cafaro was born in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsyl ...

to a working class Catholic family. She has one younger sister. Her mother, Dee Francis, was first-generation Lebanese who grew up in an Arabic speaking household in Washington, Pennsylvania. Her father was born in Pittsburgh to a first-generation Italian family with 13 children. His immigrant father and mother owned restaurants and bars; her father worked as a letter carrier for the

US Postal Service The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U ...

. Cafaro married Terrance K. Livingston in 1983. They have two adult children and reside in suburban

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

Education and career

Cafaro received her B.A. in government economics from the University of Notre Dame in 1979 and her J.D. in 1982 from the

University of Chicago Law School The University of Chicago Law School is the law school of the University of Chicago, a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It is consistently ranked among the best and most prestigious law schools in the world, and has many dist ...

. During Law School, she was the research assistant for

Edward H. Levi Edward Hirsch Levi (June 26, 1911 – March 7, 2000) was an American law professor, academic leader, and government lawyer. He served as dean of the University of Chicago Law School from 1950 to 1962, president of the University of Chicago from ...

, the former President of the University and Attorney General of the United States. She had summer associate stints at the law firms

Jones Day Jones Day is an American multinational law firm. As of 2021, it was the eighth largest law firm in the U.S. and the 13th highest grossing law firm in the world. Originally headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, Jones Day ranks first in both M&A lea ...

in Cleveland (1980),

Debevoise & Plimpton Debevoise & Plimpton LLP (often shortened to Debevoise) is an international law firm headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1931 by Harvard Law School alumnus Eli Whitney Debevoise and Oxford-trained William Stevenson, the firm was origin ...

in New York (1981) and Cleary Gottlieb in New York (1982). In 1982–83 Cafaro served as a judicial clerk to the Hon. J. Dickson Phillips, United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. From 1983 to 1997, Cafaro practiced real estate, corporate and finance law, Cafaro also taught real estate transactions and finance as an adjunct professor at

Northwestern University Law School Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law is the law school of Northwestern University, a private research university. It is located on the university's Chicago campus. Northwestern Law has been ranked among the top 14, or "T14" law scho ...

from 1988 to 1992. She joined Ambassador Apartments Inc. (NYSE:AAH), a multifamily REIT, as president and a director, in 1997 where she helped sell the company. Cafaro was hired as President and Chief Executive Officer to rescue Ventas, a healthcare REIT, in 1999. Her initial actions at Ventas were to restructure the bank debt, lead a global consensual restructuring of its main tenant Vencor so it could emerge from bankruptcy (renamed Kindred Healthcare, Inc.) Cafaro was listed as one of the best performing CEOs in the world for six years by the

Harvard Business Review ''Harvard Business Review'' (''HBR'') is a general management magazine published by Harvard Business Publishing, a wholly owned subsidiary of Harvard University. ''HBR'' is published six times a year and is headquartered in Brighton, Ma ...

, until the list was discontinued in 2020. In 2016, Cafaro became an owner and member of the management committee of the

Pittsburgh Penguins The Pittsburgh Penguins (colloquially known as the Pens) are a professional ice hockey team based in Pittsburgh. They compete in the National Hockey League (NHL) as a member of the Metropolitan Division of the Eastern Conference, and have play ...

, a

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey sports league, league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranke ...

team, who won back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in 2016 and 2017.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cafaro, Debra 1957 births Living people American health care businesspeople American real estate businesspeople Businesspeople from Pittsburgh American lawyers and judges of Italian descent American people of Lebanese descent Lawyers from Pittsburgh People associated with Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton American women chief executives Notre Dame College of Arts and Letters alumni University of Chicago Law School alumni Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 21st-century American women