Seven pivotal people
Some you'll recognize. Others you won't. But if you live in Chicago they affect everyday life for you and millions more. Who are they? Business Reporter Francine Knowles profiles seven influentials.
Adele Simmons has been called the queen of public policy.
(Sun-Times file)
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7 key Chicagoans
"I have a very deep Chicago soul," she said. "I care passionately about this region."
She is vice chairwoman of Chicago Metropolis 2020, an organization of business, civic and education leaders working to position the Chicago metropolitan region to excel in the century to come.
Since joining Metropolis 2020 in 1999, she's credited with playing a key role in laying the groundwork and bringing stakeholders together to boost support for early childhood education. Her work helped lead to funding under the Ryan and Blagojevich administrations to support efforts to provide preschool for every three- and four-year-old in the state whose parents want it. In the past four years, the state has provided $135 million in state block grants for preschoolers.
Simmons will have a hand in determining how we handle climate change in the decades to come. She's currently co-chairing a task force that's helping the city develop a strategy to address that issue, including finding ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and ensure the city is prepared to deal with the repercussions of climate change.
As a member of the Burnham Plan Centennial Committee, she's helping plan next year's 100th anniversary celebration of the Burnham Plan, which guided growth and development here over the past century. The celebration will be used as a catalyst to inspire and galvanize local elected officials; business, civic, cultural and education leaders, and neighborhood organizations to build upon the success of the Burnham Plan in shaping the region's future.
Simmons also is a founder of Global Chicago, part of the Chicago Council of Global Affairs, which helps Chicagoans understand the challenges and opportunities of globalization and use its global connections to the city's benefit. She also is founder of the Chicago Global Donors Network, a resource for global donors.
Of the 52 million people who pop into a McDonald's restaurant to eat everyday, most probably never heard of Dan Coudreaut, but he affects their lives nonetheless.
As head chef at the world's biggest fast-food company, Coudreaut plays a major role in deciding what menu options are available at McDonald's 669 restaurants in Illinois and 31,000 globally -- in effect helping write the daily menu for millions.
Chef Dan and his team consider roughly 1,800 possible new menu items a year, some developed internally and others suggested by suppliers and McDonald's owners and operators. Only four to five make the cut each year. Here's what Coudreaut considers:
"We've got to make sure that it's relevant to the customers' eating habits, and desires for adventurous foods," he said. "We definitely want to make sure that it's operationally viable: Does this product actually work in our restaurants? We have to take into account the supply: Are there enough widgets in the world to make this new product?"
Since joining McDonald's in 2004, Coudreaut has overseen the launch of items including McDonald's spicy chicken sandwich, the Asian salad and chicken snack wraps, recipes that have earned him recognition from his peers, landing Nation's Restaurant News 2006 Chef/Innovator MenuMasters Award.
Deborah DeHaas, chairwoman and regional managing partner for Deloitte & Touche USA Midwest region, is one of the highest-ranking women in corporate Chicago, with 5,000 partners and professionals under her wing.
With a reputation for hard work and lack of pomp, DeHaas is one of the most sought-after executives to serve at Chicago's cutting-edge civic and cultural organizations.
"I feel really fortunate because I have had the opportunity to be involved with a wide variety of civic organizations throughout the city, to work with these organizations to help them go to the next level of achievement," she said.
She's involved in a dozen high profile professional and civic organizations in the city, among them the Chicago 2016 Committee. She served as co-chair on a fund-raiser held at McCormick Place last month that raised $9.4 million to help finance the city's push for the Olympics.
She joined DeLoitte in 2002, leaving Arthur Andersen after the Enron scandal toppled the company that had been her home for more than 20 years and where she had worked her way up to managing partner. She helped recruit other former Andersen siblings; 950 of them have joined Deloitte in Chicago.
DeHaas is treasurer of Millennium Park and sits on the boards of the Economic Club of Chicago and Executives' Club of Chicago. She is one of only six women members on the 86-member Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, one of the city's oldest leadership organizations.
She is also past chairwoman of the Chicago Network, an organization of 350 professional women who have reached the top of their games in the arts, government, academia, business and other professions. The network, where DeHaas continues to serve on the board, annually publishes a census tracking the number of women directors and executive officers at Chicago's 50 biggest companies, keeping the heat on companies to expand their roster of female executives.
Frank Clark is literally linked to power.
As chairman and chief executive of Commonwealth Edison, the buck stops with him when it comes to keeping the lights on.
"I view my responsibilities very, very straightforwardly, and that is to make sure that all the customers that we serve, when they flip that switch, they have reliable electricity, and that the electricity is delivered to them at the lowest possible cost," Clark said.
His tenure at the utility, which began in the mail room, spans more than 40 years. Ten years ago, no one in or out of government was more responsible for laying the groundwork for deregulation of the industry, which kept rates frozen, saving customers $3 billion. While serving as ComEd's chief lobbyist at the time, he helped bring about compromises that led to approval of legislation in Springfield that opened the door to competition in the industry here.
Clark, ranked among the 50 most powerful black executives in America by Fortune magazine in 2002, remains one of few African Americans at the highest echelons of the utility industry.
On the civic front, he chaired the United Way of Metropolitan Chicago's 2006 annual campaign that raised $70 million, and he serves as chairman of the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum and Metropolitan Family Services.
He also is co-chairman of the DuSable Capital Campaign, a $30 million initiative that has the goal of making DuSable Museum the premier African-American history museum in the country, and he led successful efforts that raised $6 million for the African American Legacy fund at the Chicago Community Trust. The fund focuses on encouraging nonprofits focused on the African-American community.
Oprah Winfrey. There's really no need to write more.
From making Dr. Phil a household name, to creating best-selling authors, to enriching the lives of underprivileged girls on the other side of the planet, the Chicago-based, socially conscious entertainment guru's influence is far-reaching.
"The Oprah Winfrey Show," which started it all more than two decades ago, now airs in 126 countries and affects the next day's chitchat in offices around the globe.
Meanwhile, the billionaire's philanthropic Angel Network has elevated minds by funding 60 new schools in 13 countries.
It's said he's the call you gotta take. And it's likely to cost you.
But if Chicago succeeds in scoring the 2016 Olympic Games, Patrick Ryan will be awarded much of the credit for his leadership in helping galvanize the community behind the Olympic bid.
The founder of insurance broker Aon Corp., Ryan is the man tapped by Mayor Daley to chair the Chicago 2016 Committee, and he will join Daley this weekend as the city makes its final pitch to the U.S. Olympic Committee in the hopes of ultimately winning the Games in 2016, a fete that would pump billions into the local economy.
Ryan mobilized the players that helped raise more than $32 million from corporate and private sources in recent months, and he helped convince the City Council to approve providing a $500 million guarantee supporting the Olympic effort.
"When they asked me to accept this responsibility for something that could impact many generations to come, I must confess that I couldn't refuse," Ryan said. "Maybe I'm a born salesman."
Paul O'Connor is in the business of selling brand Chicago globally.
As executive director of economic development corporation World Business Chicago, a public-private partnership, he's been front and center in efforts to attract and keep companies here since Mayor Daley appointed him to the post eight years ago.
He's helped lead successful efforts to recruit Boeing Co., Innovene and Mittal Steel USA, and to retain the headquarters of Quaker, Brunswick and USG.
Under his leadership, World Business Chicago, which works with hundreds of companies annually, has been recognized among the top 10 of North America's 4,500 economic development groups for the past two years.
He's focused on work force development, working with stakeholders to help identify key sectors where worker shortages exist for jobs with good pay and benefits. And he's pushed for the development of training programs in the railroad, trucking and manufacturing industries, now in place at City Colleges, to help fill the gaps. The sector approach has drawn interest from the National Governors Association as a best practice.
"Our economic future is really more about our people than anything else," O'Connor said. "The development of our work force is the game for all the marbles."
O'Connor is also helping set the agenda to deal with long-term strategic issues, such as ensuring that Chicago -- one of the biggest container handlers in the world -- takes steps to ensure that it's prepared to deal with the anticipated doubling of intermodal container traffic here in coming years.
