Who We Are

We are a team of experienced public servants, applied academics, labor and community leaders who believe that building learning cultures within our organizations is key to transformation.

Kathleen Yang-Clayton

President

Dr. Kathleen Yang-Clayton joined the Department of Public Administration faculty of the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) in 2017 after extensive experience in legislative advocacy and voter education, engagement, and mobilization. She served as Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at her college from 2021-2023, leading initial efforts to implement racial equity plans for her department by focusing on developing a prematriculation program for first-generation students. She is a Senior Research Fellow at the Great Cities Institute and a member of several national initiatives that integrate public administration and racial equity, including the Kettering Foundation, the National League of Cities, and the International City/County Management Association. Her current work focuses on the operationalization of racial equity practices inside of large public organizations. This work aims to increase the public’s trust in government and improve government performance, especially but not exclusively in historically marginalized communities. Prior to joining UIC, she led voting rights and voter mobilization work for Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Chicago, where she helped to pass landmark legislation expanding voting rights and strengthening election systems in Illinois. Dr. Yang-Clayton graduated from the University of Chicago with her undergraduate degree in political science and doctorate in sociology and is a proud graduate of the Chicago Public Schools.

Kimberly Richardson

Treasurer

Kimberly Richardson is the Assistant City Manager for the City of Peoria, IL. Ms. Richardson has an extensive background in local government, having recently served as the Deputy City Manager for Evanston, IL, where she supervised directors, provided policy guidance, oversaw daily operations of the City Manager’s Office, and worked on major racial equity initiatives including launching a three-year organization change program and anchoring the city’s efforts in reparations. Ms. Richardson was awarded the Assistant Excellence in Leadership Award by the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) in 2023. She is a senior member of several government organizations. These include the Illinois City/County Management Association (ILCMA) (where she currently serves as an Executive Board Member and previously served as Co-Chair of the DEI Committee), the League of Women in Government (where she currently serves as Board President), ICMA, the Legacy Project, the Illinois Association of Municipal Management Assistants (IAMMA), and the National Forum for Black Public Administrators (NFBPA). Richardson attended Northern Illinois University for her Bachelor of Arts and her Master of Public Administration.

Tracy Bishop

Secretary

Tracy T. Bishop has worked for the Forest Preserves District of Cook County since 2014. With over 10 years’ experience in local government and eight years in private banking, she currently serves as the Director of Permits, Rentals and Concessions for the District, which receives an estimated 62 million visits per year. She oversees the customer service-related policies and practices that produce a welcoming experience for the millions of people that use or visit the Forest Preserves. In addition, she works to secure additional non-tax-related revenue that goes toward initiatives that help protect, conserve, and restore the 70,000 acres of Forest Preserve lands. Bishop was one of the first co-chairs of the Racial Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (REDI) Committee for the District and led several important initiatives on operationalizing racial equity within the Forest Preserves. Bishop played an essential role in the development of the Forest Preserves’ REDI strategic plan and continues the work of operationalizing equity in all aspects of her role with the district. She has participated in and is a member of several leadership development programs and professional associations, including the National Recreation and Park Association, the Illinois Park and Recreation Association Working Committee, and Chicago United for Equity. She is a graduate of Roosevelt University.

Jorge Sanchez

Member

Jorge Sanchez has litigated complex cases primarily in federal courts for over 25 years. Prior to co-founding the firm Lopez & Sanchez, LLP, Sanchez was the Senior Litigator for the Midwest regional office of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and spent many years with the Chicago firm Despres, Schwartz, & Geoghegan, Ltd., representing workers, unions, and other plaintiffs primarily in labor, employment, and civil rights litigation. Sanchez’s docket included cases on behalf of undocumented children denied access to public school and day laborers and street vendors arrested for seeking work in public places. Sanchez has argued and won several federal and state appeals on issues including the WARN Act, Title VII, Section 1983 Jurisdiction, and the Voting Rights Act. Sanchez was MALDEF’s trial counsel in Texas v. Holder, which resulted in the three-judge panel’s denial of preclearance to the State of Texas’ voter ID law prior to the Supreme Court’s vacatur of the decision in the wake of its Shelby County decision. A graduate of the Chicago Public Schools, Sanchez graduated from Brown University and earned his law degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

Christian Diaz

Member

Christian Diaz is Director of Equitable Housing & Land Use at Palenque LSNA, a community organization that has been developing leaders and advancing racial equity in Chicago for 62 years. Previously, he served as Executive Director of Chicago Votes, where he designed models of civic innovation with young people in Chicago Public Schools and the City Colleges of Chicago and helped steer a coalition to pass automatic voter registration in Illinois. Born in Mexico, Diaz identifies as queer, Latino, and immigrant. He brings 10+ years of experience in nonprofit management, community engagement, and racial equity advocacy, having worked in coalitions to win driver’s licenses for undocumented residents, require data transparency on student arrests in publicly-funded schools, and ban 10-day suspensions of high school students in Illinois. Diaz graduated with a B.A. in Global Studies at Warren Wilson College. In earlier lives, Diaz volunteered at a home for children with disabilities in northern India; worked at a wolf sanctuary in rural New Mexico; and taught English at a monastery in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Sarah Zimmerman

Member

Sarah Zimmerman is a non-profit and labor leader with over 25 years of experience in organizational development, legislative advocacy, statewide policy campaigns, and policy research. Zimmerman began her career as a research analyst at Working Partnerships USA and was also assigned to Development Director, leading fundraising for an organization with a $3 million annual budget. Zimmerman then became research director at Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1000, a 95,000-member union with an annual budget of $65 million. After three years, she was promoted to Deputy Chief of Staff. During the last 13 years, she led the statewide campaign to create the first Retirement Security for All program in the country, housed within the SEIU State Council, which represents nearly 800,000 workers in California. Today, she specializes in working with companies, unions, and nonprofits in the fields of strategic planning, fundraising, research, project management, facilitation, organizational development, and curriculum development. Her research areas of expertise include but are not limited to health policy, affordable housing, racial equity, tax policy, smart growth, gender analysis, and workforce development. Zimmerman is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the New School for Social Research with two master’s degrees in economics and historical studies.

Liam Bird

Liam Bird, a seasoned executive leader with 15 years of experience, integrates research, policy, and practical approaches to build equitable systems. As CEO of LRFB Equity Consulting, LLC, he collaboratively designs learning and accountability mechanisms for equity by focusing on most impacted communities. A key figure in launching equity initiatives, he co-founded the Office of Equity at Chicago Public Schools in 2019 and later became the Director of Racial Equity Initiatives. He actively co-designs and sustains equity, policy, and education initiatives nationwide, with demonstrated leadership in Illinois, California, and Indiana. An experienced leader, Bird has been a key contributor to teams and research consortiums such as the Illinois Board of Higher Education, the University of Chicago Consortium on School Research, and the White House Reach Higher Initiative. Bird, a Surge Institute grant recipient, founded LRFB Equity Consulting, LLC, which supports DEI in the public and private sectors. He is a recently admitted doctoral student in Education Policy at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with a focus on Diversity and Equity, building on his Master’s in Public Policy from Northwestern University, where his research gained international recognition.

Katie Friedman

Katie Friedman is a consultant for C3E. She brings over five years of experience working with local governments in the Chicago region. Friedman previously worked with the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus for four years, where she launched the organization’s first working group on diversity, equity, and inclusion and supported the implementation of the first iteration of the Learning and Operationalizing Racial Equity (LORE) program. During her time at the Mayors Caucus, she helped secure nearly $500,000 in grant funding to support local government initiatives. Friedman has also consulted with the Migration Policy Institute on topics related to immigrant integration, language access, and digital equity for refugee and immigrant populations in the United States. Prior to her work in policy and government, Friedman taught English as a second language to refugee families on the north side of Chicago through Catholic Charities Refugee and Immigration Services. Friedman has a bachelor’s degree in Linguistics and Classics from McGill University. In 2022, she was awarded an Erasmus Mundus scholarship to pursue her graduate studies in Europe. She is currently wrapping up an international joint master’s degree in urban studies based in Brussels, Vienna, Copenhagen, and Madrid. Her thesis focuses on racial equity in governance and the role of governance networks in pushing for transformative change.

Dr. Judy Pryor-Ramirez

Dr. Judy Pryor-Ramirez is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Public Service and the Director of the Executive Master of Public Administration Program at NYU Wagner. Her teaching and research examine the leadership approaches of nonprofit, social justice movement building, and public leaders using race, gender, and class analyses. Dr. Pryor-Ramirez engages in qualitative methodologies and specializes in community-based participatory action research. Dedicated to enabling transformative possibilities, Dr. Pryor-Ramirez centers justice and equity in her teaching, practice, and research. At NYU, she is a member of The Latinx Project network of faculty committed to interdisciplinary Latinx Studies. For service to the profession, Dr. Pryor-Ramirez is a member of the Partnership for Public Service Research Advisory Council. Prior to Wagner, Dr. Pryor-Ramirez served as the assistant dean and faculty member in leadership at the Bard College MBA program in New York City, where she taught courses on antiracist leadership and personal leadership development. Before that, she was a research and organizational development consultant for New York City nonprofits and institutions like The Laundromat Project, The Worker Institute, the Bronx Children’s Museum, and the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, among others.