Jane Dokko is an assistant vice president in the Community Development and Policy Studies division of the Economic Research Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. In this role, she leads research and analysis related to the Bank’s community development function. During the Obama Administration, Dokko was the deputy assistant secretary for financial economics at the U.S. Treasury Department and a senior economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers. She has also worked at the International Monetary Fund, Brookings Institution, and Federal Reserve Board. Dokko is the author of widely cited academic journal articles, policy briefs, and general interest publications, and her work has been frequently covered in the mainstream media. Her expertise spans housing finance, consumer finance, retirement security, and financial regulation.

Darlene Oliver Hightower, vice president, Community Health Equity, is responsible for a team of 40 staff who oversee the implementation and evaluation of community programs aimed at improving the health of individuals in Rush’s community areas. She oversees the Office of Community Health Equity and Engagement—which includes three school-based health clinics—and Rush University’s community outreach programs and community benefit reporting, as well as Rush’s cradle-to-career health care pipeline programs. Hightower is also a member of the senior leadership team for West Side United, a cross-sector, collective impact collaborative aimed at improving health and economic vitality on Chicago’s West Side.

Prior to joining Rush, Hightower was national vice president of programs for Public Allies, Inc. Hightower has served as a Chicago Community Trust Leadership Fellow, a University of Chicago Civic Leadership Academy Fellow, and an administrative law judge for the Chicago Department of Human Relations. Additionally, she was recently named a Culture of Health Leader Fellow with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Hightower attended Bradley University and received her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC.

Leslie McGranahan is a vice president and director of regional research in the Economic Research Department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Her primary research interests relate to the effects of federal, state, and local government policy on individuals and households. She closely follows regional and national developments in government spending and revenues. She received a bachelor's degree in politics from Princeton University and master's and doctorate degrees in economics from Northwestern University.

Katya Nuques began her career at Enlace in 2005 as the director of community schools. She played a substantial role in the expansion of Enlace’s Community Schools network, significantly increasing staff and funding levels and diversifying revenue sources. As director of education, a role she assumed in 2007, Nuques expanded the organization’s involvement in teacher preparation programs, internships, and postsecondary access, and led Enlace’s participation in coalitions such as the Illinois Federation for Community Schools. In 2011, Nuques became associate director, overseeing programs in the areas of immigration, education, economic development, health, and community engagement, as well as providing direct support to department directors. In 2015, she became executive director of Enlace. In this role, she focuses on reinforcing organizational structure, high-quality programming, and financial sustainability. Nuques is a member of the board of directors of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, the Chicago Thrive Leadership Council, the Latino Policy Forum and its Illinois Latino Agenda, the Second Federal Bank Advisory Council, and the board of directors of Sinai Health System. She is also a Leadership Greater Chicago Fellow, and dedicates her personal time and resources to support undocumented students’ education.

Brenda Palms-Barber—president and CEO of the North Lawndale Employment Network, an urban workforce development agency, and founding CEO of Sweet Beginnings, LLC, a social enterprise using urban beekeeping to create jobs for those with significant barriers to employment—has served as executive director of NLEN since its founding in 1999. She launched NLEN’s wholly owned subsidiary social enterprise, Sweet Beginnings, in 2004 to ensure its hardest-to-employ clients could get jobs and gain a history of employment. Under Palms-Barber’s leadership, NLEN has grown from two to 24 employees, and it now has an annual budget in excess of $2.4 million.

Today, NLEN serves more than 2,000 people per year. Sweet Beginnings has expanded from a cottage industry to distribution at more than 40 Mariano’s stores and has been awarded one of the first Benefit Chicago loans for social impact businesses. NLEN has received numerous awards, including one of the first MacArthur Foundation Awards for Creative and Effective Institutions (2006) and the prestigious Bank of America Neighborhood Builders Award (2015). Palms-Barber has raised the national profile of NLEN, Sweet Beginnings, and the plight of people with barriers to employment through extensive media coverage, including from CNN, NBC’s The Today Show, CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley, a TEDWomen documentary, and Lifetime. Palms-Barber has published in the Wall Street Journal and appeared on ABC7’s Windy City Live as a 4-Star Chicagoan. In recognition of her innovation and commitment to helping those in need, Congressman Danny Davis awarded Palms-Barber the Cardiss Collins Trailblazer Award (2013).

Palms-Barber is a graduate of Harvard’s Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management Program and the Chicago Urban League’s nextOne entrepreneurship program, which included classes at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. She holds a Master of Science in nonprofit management from the Spertus Institute in Chicago.