Andrea Densham joined Shedd Aquarium in 2017 to lead the newly launched Conservation Policy and Advocacy team. Created to enhance Shedd’s position as a policy expert, Densham’s team develops and implements the institution’s policy goals. A government affairs thought leader and advisor, she brings more than 20 years of experience in not-for-profit management, strategic planning, research, and public policy and advocacy.

She identifies agency assets; cultivates alliances among chief executives, government officials and community leaders; and mobilizes scientific experts to create impactful initiatives at the local, regional and national levels. Working with diverse public and private sector partners, she is passionate about creating sustainable solutions in evolving environments.

Prior to Shedd, Densham served as vice president of government affairs and public health at Prevent Blindness America and as executive director of the Childcare Network of Evanston. Over her career, Densham established numerous expert panels, leadership councils and national coalitions that brought together community stakeholders, public officials, federal and state leadership, and private sector executives to achieve lasting impact. A lifelong advocate and activist, Densham is also former director of HIV Services for the City of Chicago, where she and her team educated elected officials and civic leaders on critical issues, advanced groundbreaking federal policy and secured critical resources.

A Michigan native, Densham traces her love of aquatic life to her childhood surrounded by the Great Lakes and young adulthood spent working on the New England Aquarium’s whale watch boats. She is dedicated to empowering individuals to advance Shedd’s tremendous legacy of sparking compassion, curiosity and conservation of the aquatic world.

Densham is on the faculty at Saint Xavier University; she has previously taught at Roosevelt and DePaul Universities. She has written widely on social movements, political participation, health policy and women’s, lesbian and LGBTQ issues. She holds a BA from the University of Massachusetts and an MA in political science from the University of Chicago.

Megan Lee is the Senior Advisor of Culture and Engagement at Southwest Airlines. The Culture and Engagement team strives create an environment where all Employees feel heard, recognized, celebrated, and supported through every step of their experience. In her role, Megan leads a variety of cross-functional projects for the Company and the department, including most notably the recent launch of The Colleen C. Barrett Institute for Cultural Excellence and Customer Service.

A 21-year veteran of Southwest, Megan has held previous roles in Southwest’s Marketing and Communication & Outreach departments. Most recently, she spent 12 years as a the Senior Manager of Community Outreach where she helped lead the overall vision and implementation of Southwest’s successful charitable investment activities through the Southwest Airlines Foundation and community programs such as Adopt a Pilot, Medical Transportation Grant Program, and Southwest’s own industry-leading upcycling initiative: Repurpose with Purpose. Megan is motivated by her passion for two things: serving the community and serving the Employees of Southwest Airlines, and believes that the hearts of our incredible people are the secret to Southwest’s unmatched success.

Megan is a graduate of Texas A&M University and holds a Certified Corporate Responsibility Executive (CCRE) designation from the University of Notre Dame and ACCP. She is also a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business Executive Leadership Program. An avid runner, cheer mom, dog lover, and wannabe yogi, she lives in Frisco, TX with her daughter, Madeline and their two pets.

Laura S. Nieto serves as Director of Community Outreach at Southwest Airlines, where she leads the Company’s corporate giving and stewardship strategy. Founded on the principles of loving People, building resilience and living responsibly, Laura oversees Southwest’s strategic community investments, employee engagement and volunteerism, foundation giving, sustainability programs and social impact initiatives.

She and her team work to ensure Southwest is a trusted partner by nurturing authentic relationships and championing causes that help communities thrive. Laura has a passion for developing innovative programs that engage and empower diverse communities. Under her leadership, Southwest has been recognized as an industry leader and outstanding corporate citizen.

Laura graduated from Texas Tech University with a B.A. in public relations and was named a 2016 Distinguished Alumni. Laura is recognized as a Top Latino Leader in Texas by the Texas Diversity Council and is a graduate of the Dallas Regional Chamber’s Leadership Dallas program. She serves as a board member of the Texas Women’s Foundation.

Laura achieved her goal of becoming a Six Star Finisher by completing the six World Marathon Majors. She is a Texas native and resides in Dallas with her husband and daughter.

Laura Coy is responsible for overseeing William Blair’s foundation, global philanthropy, and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) efforts. In this role, she works closely with clients, key stakeholders, and colleagues around the globe to deliver best-in-class programs and approaches for charitable giving and ESG strategies. Laura and her team activate William Blair’s mission, vision, and values to empower colleagues and engage clients in meaningful philanthropic pursuits. Laura works to optimize social and financial capital to advance financial inclusion, diversity, equity, and sustainability.

Before joining William Blair, Laura was the senior manager of corporate social responsibility, public affairs manager, and senior corporate philanthropist for W.W. Grainger, Inc. While at Grainger, she initiated, designed, and led their Corporate Social Responsibility program. Prior to working at Grainger, Laura worked for nonprofits including the National Alzheimer’s Association and the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum where she built public-private partnerships to advance research and environmental initiatives. She is the board chair emeritus of the Association of Corporate Citizenship Professionals, is the incoming board chair of North Park Elementary School. She serves on the leadership council of Loyola’s Baumhart Center for Social Enterprise & Responsibility and the leadership committee of the Illinois Holocaust Museum.

Monique B. Jones, LCSW is a visionary leader with an extensive background in mental health, violence prevention, philanthropy, and gender & racial equity. Her career and civic interests span the intersections where the lives of those most vulnerable fall victim to structural oppression and inequity.

She brings over 20 years of leadership in the nonprofit sector to her role as the fourth President & CEO for Forefront; Illinois’ premier organization focused on connecting philanthropy, operating nonprofits, and their allies to improve the lives of all people in Illinois. In her leadership at the Evanston Community Foundation, she led the implementation of racial equity with grant making, fundraising and leadership development. She was successful at increasing the asset size of the organization from $18M to $31M in just five years. Under Monique’s leadership the Foundation established the Evanston Reparations Community Fund, the first of any Community Foundation nationally in support of the City of Evanston’s resolution to support reparations. Of note is her restructuring of the Foundation during the impact of the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, releasing grant restrictions, raising $6M to distribute for immediate needs created by the pandemic. Monique is well versed at leading during difficult times.

Monique previously served as Director of Programs for the Chicago Foundation for Women, Director of Violence Prevention for the Cook County Department of Public Health and Clinical Director for the historic Jane Addams Hull House Association. She began her career as a clinical therapist supporting families involved in the Pulaski County (Little Rock, Arkansas) juvenile justice system.

She received the 2020 Nonprofit Person of The Year award from the Evanston Chamber of Commerce. Because of her dedication to community, she is the recipient of the 2018 NAACP (Evanston North Shore chapter) Community Service Award as well as the Chicago African Americans in Chicago (CAAIP) Nonprofit Champion of Diversity Award. She is an Adjunct Lecturer at Northwestern University in the Kapnick School of Business Institutions introducing students to nonprofit leadership & management. Monique is active in the Chicago Metropolitan Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta, Sorority, Inc.; an international public service organization joined during her matriculation at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in 1997. She is a Charter Member of the Magnificent Mile Chapter of Jack and Jill of America, Inc. serving as the Foundation Chair for the chapter.

Monique is a graduate of The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville with a B.A in Social Work and The University of Texas at Austin with a M.S. in Social Work. She completed the Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management executive program at the Harvard School of Business. In her self-care moments she enjoys running, golfing, sewing, and showing appreciation for life with her husband, daughter and yorkie in Chicago.

Israel Idonije is a builder. He has been building toward the next phase of his life since he was a child. He built an 11-year NFL career, against all odds, by developing himself to the status of an elite athlete.

Numerous honors and awards have been given to him for his work both on and off the field including leading the NFL in blocked punts/field goals in 2005, 2006, and 2007; member of the Chicago Bears NFC Championship team, which played in the 2006 Super Bowl; the NFL’s JB Award and award for Global Dedication, April 2008; Ed Block Courage Award, 2009; Bears “Walter Payton Man of the Year” nominee, 2009 and 2010, and one of three finalists for the League award in 2010; USA Today’s All-Joe Team, 2010 and 2012; recognized as Points of Light Awardee by Barack Obama and George HW Bush at the White House, 2013; presented the Order of Manitoba by Prince Charles, May 2014; awarded Honorary Doctor of Laws by University of Manitoba, June 2014; acknowledged as Entrepreneur of the Year Midwest Finalist 2016; Football Manitoba Hall of Fame, 2018; and accepted Canada’s Meritorious Service Decoration, March 2019.

Israel is the founder of iF Charities, which programs have contributed to the lives of over 10,000 youth in Chicago, Winnipeg and West Africa. As an entrepreneur, Israel has started several successful business ventures. His company ATHLiTACOMiCS has been developing custom comic content since 2009. In 2019, he opened RSTR, a boutique gym in the South Loop, which focuses on health and fitness transformations with 30-minute workouts. He also cofounded Crypto Key Stack and recently launched FBRK (fabric) Impact House, a 40,000 square-foot, first of its kind philanthropic hub in the heart of Chicago’s Loop. Israel is also Managing Partner of the mHUB Product Impact Fund.

It is important to Israel that all of his ventures have a positive impact on the world lifting and building others. He believes everyone is blessed with the gifts and abilities to become successful in their own unique way.

Community Engagement Associate, Obama Foundation

 

Chris Crater serves as a community engagement associate, social justice advocate, and program development professional in the city of Chicago. Effective using culturally responsive pedagogy for African American male advancement in high performing schools. Established organizational project management and leadership skills have supervised over 5000 youth on Service Learning projects. Professional demeanor and understanding of executive expectations and ability to excel in teams or independently with organizational liaison skills.

Regional Operations Director, Discover Financial Services

 

Juatise Gathings is a Chicago native and grew up on the south side.  Juatise works for Discover Financial Services and is the Regional Operations Director for their newest location in Chatham.  Discover is opening a new customer care center on June 7th, 2021, that will provide 1,000 full time jobs to local residents.  In addition to the jobs, employees will have access to full benefits and free college tuition on their first day of employment through Discover’s College Commitment program.  Discover’s mission is to provide a brighter financial future and look forward to serving that mission through jobs, economic opportunities, and community engagement.  Juatise and her leadership team are excited to build a great customer care center for Discover but is equally eager to encourage other companies to join them in investing in south and west side neighborhoods.  To learn more about this work, visit Discover.com/shinebright

 

Executive Vice President for Civic Engagement, Obama Foundation

 

As a member of the Executive Leadership Team, Michael Strautmanis leads teams driving civic engagement, community affairs, the My Brothers’ Keeper Alliance, and strategic partnerships for the Obama Foundation. In addition to leading external strategy for the Foundation, Mike is an internal leader on shaping, creating and carrying organizational culture, as the executive sponsor of the Foundation’s organizational culture working group, focused on diversity, equity, antiracism, innovation, stewardship, and accountability. Mike is focused on driving impact in Chicago, where the Foundation is investing over $500 million, including the development of the Obama Presidential Center.

Before joining the Obama Foundation, Mike spent over a decade in Washington, D.C., working to increase access to economic opportunity, strengthen the judicial system, and champion equity and inclusion in the White House, federal agencies, and Congress. An advisor to President Barack Obama for almost two decades, he served in the Obama White House for four of those years as the Chief of Staff of the Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs, and the President’s Senior Advisor, Valerie Jarrett. In that role, Mike was at the center of crafting the White House’s agenda, policy, and strategic approach to key initiatives, including health care reform, education, criminal justice reform, the growth of the technology sector, and the acceleration of clean energy technology. Mike is also a key architect of President and Mrs. Obama’s unique approach to civic engagement and leadership development.

After President Obama’s first term, Mike joined the Walt Disney Company in Burbank, CA, where he led an enterprise-wide initiative to consolidate, focus, and deepen the impact of Disney’s corporate social responsibility programs, focused on youth development through creativity and innovation. Mike began his career in government working in the Office of General Counsel at the U.S. Agency for International Development. He did stints at the House of Representatives and American Association for Justice before joining then-Senator Obama’s congressional staff, campaign, and subsequent transition team.

An active member of Chicago’s civic community, Mike serves on the boards of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, City Year Chicago, the Emerald South Economic Development Collaboratory, and the Billie Jean King Leadership Institute. Mike received his bachelor’s degree from the College of Communications at the Univ. of Illinois and a Juris Doctor from the Univ. of Illinois College of Law.

Urban Designer, Gensler

 

Nicholas Pryor is dedicated to discovering and amplifying the latent potential of places and communities. His design process is focused on creating an open and collaborative engagement with the project community. The main goal is always to help a community express a vision for their future and translate that vision into a clear set of policies and frameworks to be implemented.

Embedded in all of his work is a dedication to leveraging emerging and innovative technologies to develop a better understanding of the context and to make better design decisions.

He has worked in a variety of contexts and has broad experience leading clients through the design process to make decisions about the future of their built environment. These engagements have ranged from district plans for public-private partnerships to campus plans for corporate and institutional organizations in contexts across the world.

Master of Architecture, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL Bachelor of Science in Architecture Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Member, Urban Land Institute
Member, American Planning Association Member
American Institute of Architects

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Chief Operating Officer, Trust Neighborhoods

 

Kavya has dedicated her career to creating more equitable communities. She has helped young people get more civically active through helping start The Obama Foundation and has supported access to economic opportunity through her policy work at the Obama White House. She started her career at McKinsey and Company, focused on local and state economic development. She has lived in a total of eight cities across the country, allowing her to learn about a diversity of neighborhoods. She has a BA in economics from Harvard College and an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

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President, Chicago Community Loan Fund (CCLF)

 

Calvin Holmes has served as the President of Chicago Community Loan Fund (CCLF) since 1998.  CCLF is a nonprofit, U.S. Treasury certified Community Development Financial Institution with $125 million in assets that provides responsible financing and technical assistance for community stabilization and development efforts that benefit low- to moderate-income neighborhoods throughout metropolitan Chicago. Under his leadership, CCLF’s lending is leveraging over 11,000 housing units, 6,300 jobs and $1.5 billion in additional capital in 70 lower wealth Chicagoland communities; and CCLF has become one of the largest single metropolitan area CDFIs in the country.  Holmes’ community development career spans over 30 years and he is a recognized expert in community development finance and issues involving access to capital. He is a past Chairman of Community Development Advisory Board-CDFI Fund (appointed by President Obama) and currently serves on the Bank of America and US Bank National Community Advisory councils, PNC Bank Advisory Board (Illinois) and the advisory board of the Chase New Markets Corporation. Further Holmes serves as Vice Chair of the newly-formed African American Alliance of CDFI CEOs which aims to leverage its members resources to reduce the American racial wealth gap. He also serves on the boards of several additional national and local nonprofits focused on creating racial, social and economic equity for under-resourced communities. Holmes is a 2003 Leadership Greater Chicago fellow and has led CCLF to receive a 2009 MacArthur Foundation Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, 2014 Alford-Axelson Award for Nonprofit Managerial Excellence and 2021 $10 million donation from MacKenzie Scott to further racial economic justice.  He holds a master’s degree in urban and regional planning, with a concentration in real estate finance, from Cornell University and a bachelor’s degree in African American Studies from Northwestern University.

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Senior Editor, Race, Class and Communities, WBEZ Chicago

 

In July 2018, Alden Loury joined WBEZ as senior editor of the race, class and communities desk, which provides enterprise reporting on those topics as well as housing, immigration and employment.

Previously, Alden served as the director of research and evaluation for the Metropolitan Planning Council for two years where he examined and wrote about population loss, demographic shifts, job trends and racial segregation.

Prior to joining MPC, Alden served as an investigator and later as a policy analyst for the Better Government Association. In more than four years at the BGA, Alden documented abuses with legislative scholarships, campaign finance expenditures and ward remapping and later analyzed data and lobbied for reforms to increase government transparency, efficiency and accountability.

President, Metropolitan Planning Council

 

MarySue Barrett is a policy change-maker who designs effective and equitable urban solutions through creative collaboration across governments, businesses, philanthropy, and communities. During her more than two decades as president of the independent Metropolitan Planning Council (MPC), Ms. Barrett has built bridges across the public and private sectors to solve metropolitan Chicago’s urgent planning and development challenges. She helps refine the tactics that benefit all cities and build a better, bolder, more equitable future for everyone.

MPC believes every neighborhood has promise, every community should be heard, and every person can thrive. Ms. Barrett is a proven team-builder, leading difficult conversations about disrupting the status quo, calling out racism, and shifting power. She is often tapped to deconstruct Chicago’s and MPC’s success stories as models for cities across the globe, offering constructive analysis when we fail to unlock our region’s full potential for sustainability and equity.

Prior to leading MPC, Barrett served in former Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley’s Administration as his Chief of Policy. She counts among her top government accomplishments the early implementation of community policing and the City’s successful bid to host the 1996 Democratic National Convention. Tapping her deep knowledge of government, Ms. Barrett has guided many task forces and assisted transition committees for both Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Ill. Gov. JB Pritzker.

In 2020, Ms. Barrett was a steering committee member of the City of Chicago’s Recovery Task Force, charged with surfacing strategies for a post-COVID-19 equitable recovery. She serves on the board of Current, a non-profit supporting innovative water solutions, and on the Board of Directors of IFF, a Community Development Finance Institution. Ms. Barrett is a Nonresident Senior Fellow with the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. She is also active with Leadership Greater Chicago, The Chicago Network, and the Economic Club of Chicago.

She holds a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University and enjoys public speaking and writing, such as a recent guest column in Crain’s titled “What we do now writes the future Chicago needs.”

Ms. Barrett lives in the Lakeview neighborhood and has two college-aged children. She can’t wait to return to attending theater and dance performances and to traveling the world as a home swapper.