Meet the Econ Illinois Board Chairs:
Pamela C. Piarowski and
William Testa

Pamela C. Piarowski
Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Harris N.A. and Harris Financial Corporation
Vice President and Chief Financial Officer - BMO U.S.
Econ Illinois Board member since 2008 and
Governing Board Chair since 2010

Pam Piarowski is responsible for all financial activities of BMO Financial Group in the U.S., including financial strategies, planning and control; accounting and financial information; and taxation. Since joining BMO’s Chicago operations in 1989 and the Harris organization in 1995, she has been exposed to the financial issues of virtually every line of business across BMO Financial Group in the United States and Canada.

Prior to Pam's most recent appointment to her current role, which she also held from 2001 to 2003, she was Vice President Financial Performance Management in Toronto and was responsible for overseeing planning, forecasting and analysis for the entire organization, as well as communication of BMO's performance, including quarterly and annual MD&A and quarterly analyst presentations.

Prior to joining BMO Financial Group, Pam spent eight years with Coopers & Lybrand, providing audit services to clients in banking and real estate. She is a Certified Public Account and graduated from the University of Illinois-Champaign/Urbana with a degree in history.

William Testa
Vice President and Director of Regional Research
The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Econ Illinois Board member since 1997 and
Board of Trustees Chair since 2000

Bill Testa is a vice president and director of regional research in the economic research department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Testa has written widely in the areas of economic growth and development, the Midwest economy and state–local public finance. He directed a comprehensive long-term study and forecast of the Midwest economy, Assessing the Midwest Economy: Looking Back for the Future, and has fashioned a series of conferences on school reform.

Testa currently serves as economics editor of the Chicago Fed Letter and on the editorial board of Economic Development Quarterly. His weekly “Midwest Economy” web column, which can be found on the Federal Reserve Bank’s web site, has become a widely read and nationally quoted feature.

Testa also serves in an advisory or director’s capacity to a variety of professional journals, nonprofit organizations, advisory boards and economic development initiatives in the Midwest. He chairs the Board of Trustees of Econ Illinois and serves on the boards of the Global Chicago Center of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the Economic Development Council of Chicago.

Prior to joining the Chicago Fed in 1982, Testa was a visiting faculty member in the economics department at Tulane University in New Orleans and a graduate research fellow at the Academy for Contemporary Problems in Columbus, Ohio. He currently lectures at DePaul University’s College of Commerce. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Testa received his undergraduate degree from Northwestern University in 1975 and a Ph.D. in economics from the Ohio State University in 1981.