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Debra Cafaro

American businessperson, Chairman of the Board and CEO of ventas

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 20, 2026
Entity authorityQ16972075
Source-derived summary

Debra A. Cafaro (born December 15, 1957) is an American business executive who has been CEO of Ventas, Inc. since 1999. She is the longest-serving female CEO of an S&P 500 company.

Personal life

Cafaro was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 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 11 children. His immigrant father and mother owned restaurants and bars; her father worked as a letter carrier for the US Postal Service. Cafaro married Terrance K. Livingston in 1983. They have two adult children and reside in suburban Chicago.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Debra Cafaro” as american businessperson, Chairman of the Board and CEO of ventas. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Debra, Cafaro and American.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1957, 1999, 1983—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1957-12-15. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Debra, Cafaro and American providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Debra Cafaro”, the useful work is to connect “american businessperson, Chairman of the Board and CEO of ventas” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16972075. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1957, 1999 and 1983.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Debra Cafaro”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Debra Cafaro primary sources, Debra Cafaro archive and Debra research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Debra Cafaro” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.