State of the City 2022

David O. Brown joined the Chicago Police Department in April 2020, becoming CPD's 63rd Superintendent. He brings more than 30 years of law enforcement experience to Chicago and is nationally recognized for his expertise in public safety, community policing and reform.

Since joining CPD, Brown has prioritized community engagement and building trust in Chicago's communities. As part of this effort, the Department launched multiple initiatives focused on making the city's neighborhoods safer through community partnership. This includes the creation of the citywide Community Safety Team, which brings officers into areas with higher levels of crime. In addition to conducting enforcement, these officers regularly work with community-based organizations, faith leaders and residents to reduce violence and build community trust.

Earlier this year, Brown also announced CPD's new liaison initiative, which is an extension of the Civil Rights Unit. As part of this initiative LGBTQ+, homeless, immigrant and religious liaisons work citywide to advocate, support and build trust with marginalized communities.

Under Brown's leadership, CPD has continued to focus on enforcement efforts aimed at curbing the recent spike in gun violence seen in Chicago and nationwide. This includes creating the Gun Investigations Team, which became operational in July 2021 to focus solely on disrupting the flow of guns and holding gun traffickers accountable through strengthened prosecutorial partnerships. The Department also launched the Critical Incident Response team last year to address large-scale gatherings and protect all individuals participating in First Amendment activity.

Officer wellness has also been a top priority for Brown, who has worked to bolster wellness resources available to Department members and shatter the stigma around seeking help. In addition to bringing in a Senior Advisor of Wellness to streamline wellness efforts, CPD has been proactively bringing wellness resources directly to officers, rather than wait for officers to seek help.

Brown previously served as Chief of the Dallas Police Department from 2010-2016. He is also the author of a memoir Call to Rise.

Joseph Ferguson recently concluded a 12-year tenure as the Inspector General for the City of Chicago.

Under his stewardship, the Chicago Office of Inspector General (OIG) garnered national prominence and acclaim for its government performance audits covering a wide range of city agencies and programs, criminal and administrative investigations, audit-based evaluations and inspections of the Chicago Police Department (CPD), and the creation of a model user-friendly, interactive government data visualization platform for the public.

Prior to his work as Chicago Inspector General, Ferguson spent 15 years in the United States Attorney’s Office (USAO) for the Northern District of Illinois.

Ferguson is the co-founder and co-director of the Loyola University (Chicago) Law School National Security and Civil Rights program and currently a fellow at the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics.

Melissa Conyears-Ervin has been the City of Chicago’s treasurer since 2019. She manages the city’s $9 billion investment portfolio and is responsible for maintaining records and accounts of the city’s finances. She serves on four local pension boards with nearly $25 billion under management.

She is a former State Representative for the 10th District. Before being elected as a State Representative, she gained more than 15-years of experience in the insurance industry as an executive for Allstate and CS Insurance Strategies.

Dr. Suzet M. McKinney, principal and director of life sciences for Sterling Bay, is a nationally recognized public health expert. In her role, McKineey leads the strategy to expand Sterling Bay’s footprint in life scineces wnationwide, pursue grant programs for laboratory incubation and graduation space and advance the work of various Sterling Bay life sciences initiative including Prysm Institute.

Prior to joining Sterling Bay, McKinney was the CEO and Executive Director of the Illinois Medical District. The Illinois Medical District (IMD), a 24/7/365 environment that includes 560 acres of medical research facilities, labs, a biotech business incubator, universities, raw land development areas, four hospitals and more than 40 healthcare related facilities, is one of the largest urban medical districts in the United States. McKinney is the former Deputy Commissioner of the Bureau of Public Health Preparedness and Emergency Response at the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH), where she oversaw the emergency preparedness efforts for the Department and coordinated those efforts within the larger spectrum of the City of Chicago’s Public Safety activities, in addition to overseeing the Department’s Division of Women and Children’s Health.

McKinney previously served as the Sr. Advisor for Public Health and Preparedness at the Tauri Group, where she provided strategic and analytical consulting services to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS), BioWatch Program. Her work at DHS included providing creative, responsive and operationally based problem-solving for public health, emergency management and homeland security issues, specifically chemical and biological early detection systems and the implementation of those systems at the state and local levels.

McKinney serves on numerous boards, committees and advisory boards. Current board memberships include the Board of Directors for Lurie Children’s Hospital, Susan G. Komen Chicago, Thresholds, and the Fifth Third Bank Advisory Board. McKinney is Co-Chair of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM), Health and Medicine Division’s Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness for Disasters and Emergencies and is a member of the NASEM Board on Health Sciences Policy. She also serves on the Science and Security Board for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and is Chairperson of the Board of Scientific Counselors for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response. She has served as an Incident Commander for CDPH where she was responsible for leading multiple emergency response efforts, including Chicago’s 2014-2015 Ebola response; the operational response to the 2009 H1N1 outbreak, which was successful in vaccinating nearly 100,000 residents over a six week timeframe; as well as CDPH’s participation in the 2012 NATO Summit response and the 2010 Haiti Earthquake response. She is a member of The Chicago Network and the Economic Club of Chicago.

McKinney has earned a reputation as an experienced, knowledgeable public health official with exceptional communication skills. She has served as an on-camera media expert on emergency issues including biological and chemical threats, natural disasters, pandemic influenza, and climate-related emergencies. A sought-after expert in her field, she has also provided support to the U.S. Department of Defense’s, Defense Threat Reduction Agency, lending subject matter expertise in biological terrorism preparedness to the country of Poland.

In academia, McKinney serves as an Instructor in the Division of Translational Policy and Leadership Development at Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and as Adjunct Assistant Professor of Health Policy Administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health. Additionally, she serves as a mentor for the Biomedical Sciences Careers Project, also at Harvard University. She is the co-author of the text: Public Health Emergency Preparedness: Practical Solutions for the Real World (2018) and was named one of Chicago’s Notable Women in Healthcare (2018 & 2019).

McKinney holds her Doctorate degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, with a focus on preparedness planning, leadership and workforce development. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Brandeis University (Waltham, MA) where she was also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Fellow. She received her Master of Public Health degree (Health Care Administration) and certificates in Managed Care and Health Care Administration from Benedictine University in Lisle, IL.

Arne Duncan served as U.S. Secretary of Education from January 2009 through December 2015 as part of the Obama Administration. Prior to joining the Obama Administration, Duncan served as chief executive officer of Chicago Public Schools. From 2001 to 2008, Duncan won praise for uniting the city’s stakeholders behind an education agenda that included opening 100 new schools; expanding after-school, summer learning, early childhood, and college access programs; dramatically boosting the caliber of teachers; and building public-private partnerships around a variety of education initiatives.

He currently leads Chicago CRED, a nonprofit trying to achieve a transformative reduction in gun violence in Chicago. Through partnerships with local business leaders, community organizers, and nonprofit groups, Duncan aims to provide outreach, therapeutic, education, and employment opportunities for the young men most likely to be engaged in gun violence. He is also the managing partner at Emerson Collective, an organization dedicated to removing barriers so people can live to their full potential. Secretary Duncan graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1987, majoring in sociology. At Harvard he served as co-captain of the basketball team and was named a first team Academic All-American.

Duncan serves on the boards of: Ariel Capital Management, Aspen Institute, Communities in Schools, Lucas Museum, My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, National Association of Basketball Coaches, Revolution Foods, Thrive-Chicago and Catapult Learning, LLC. He also serves as Co-chair of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.