Mayor Gallego: Semiconductor investment, medical school and city policies aimed at advancing women in Phoenix

Mayor Kate Gallego said at the Phoenix Women’s Commission SheMatters Equity Forum at the Phoenix Convention Center that the city is pursuing large economic and policy steps intended to benefit Phoenix families and women specifically.

“We passed unanimously a equal pay ordinance of the city,” Mayor Kate Gallego said, adding that the city “have invested in paid family leave at 12 weeks” and is working to make public spaces more mother‑friendly.

Those policy items were presented alongside economic developments Gallego described as transforming local opportunity. Gallego said the city originally reported a semiconductor manufacturing investment figure of $65,000,000,000 and later referenced the project at $165,000,000,000. She described workforce impacts and told the audience that some women — including Navajo ironworkers — are earning significant early wages, saying she met “one who told me she made $8,000 in her first 3 weeks building the semiconductor fab.”

Gallego also said the city is partnering with Arizona State University to build a new medical school in downtown Phoenix and is supporting programs to expand women’s access to finance and investors. She named small, local supports — microloan programs and a partnership with the Better Business Bureau — and cited an outside women‑focused investment network, Golden Seeds, as a partner the city leverages to connect women founders with capital. She said the city will sponsor a Startup Stadium competition focused on health care and biosciences to increase pitching opportunities for women entrepreneurs.

On public safety and workforce diversity, Gallego described a Phoenix Police Department initiative called “30 by 30,” a recruitment target intended to raise the share of sworn officers who are women to 30 percent by 2030. She also said the city is adding nursing‑friendly spaces at the Convention Center and the airport.

The mayor’s remarks combined policy updates the city has already enacted, goals for future workforce representation and descriptions of economic change the city expects from private investment. Several of the figures and program names were given by the mayor during the forum; the transcript records the monetary figures and program titles as statements by Gallego.

Gallego’s remarks were delivered to a forum organized by the Phoenix Women’s Commission and framed as part of a broader conversation at the event about economic opportunity, health care and leadership for women in Phoenix.