Board of Directors

Our board of directors plays an important role in supporting CNT's impact. We're honored to have had so many community leaders and national leaders, like former CNT board member Barack Obama, donate their time and talents to our organization.

Board Officers

Bennett Johnson III, Board Chair
Co-Founder and Managing Director, Oceans Holdings LLC

Bennett is vice chair of CNT’s board. He currently is Chairman and President of The UCI Group, Inc. Bennett spent over 15 years working with and assisting the public sector in Illinois and throughout the US become more efficient and effective. ‎A lifelong Chicagoan‎, Bennett worked with the City of Chicago’s Department of Finance and as the city's Budget Director. He holds a bachelor's degree in Biomedical Engineering Sciences from Harvard University and a Master of Economics in Industrial Engineering and Personnel Management from the London School of Economics.

Bo Kemp, Vice Chair
Senior Director, Faegre Baker Daniels Consulting

Bo Kemp partners with cities, civic entities, as well as private companies to drive growth, tackle major initiatives and boost efficiency. He is particularly experienced in public-private partnerships (P3), municipal operations and infrastructure development. Bo has built a national network of advisors, advocates, and government leaders, and he has a reputation for driving innovation in municipal utilities, public infrastructure, and economic development for "legacy" cities.

Bo spent the first decade of his professional career in finance with Morgan Stanley & Co. and TSG Capital Group, a private equity group. Then, after leading Cory A. Booker’s successful transition to the office of Mayor of Newark, N.J., Bo became the city’s Business Administrator (COO). In his three years with Booker (now a U.S. Senator), Bo and the senior leadership team helped Newark evolve from a city close to bankruptcy to a community growing in population for the first time in 40 years. Bo enjoys traveling and hopes to visit 100 countries in his lifetime. He’s a dangerous golfer (and not in the good way) but an aspiring aquaponics and micro farmer. Bo holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in economics from Yale University.

Louis F. Rosenthal, Treasurer
Principal, Rosenthal Advisors LLC

Mr. Rosenthal is the Principal of Rosenthal Advisors LLC, which provides strategic, operational and financial advisory services to public and privately held companies with a focus on financial services and technology-enabled businesses. Mr. Rosenthal was previously Managing Director of The Chicago Corporation, an investment banking firm, where he now serves as Senior Advisor.

Mr. Rosenthal has over 35 years of experience in financial services and technology and has served in executive positions at Bank of America and LaSalle Bank as well as a global executive role for ABN AMRO Bank NV. Prior to joining The Chicago Corporation in 2013, Mr. Rosenthal was an organizer of a de novo bank and was a partner in a financial services advisory firm. His experience extends across investment banking, project finance, commercial and consumer lending, as well as technology and operations. Mr. Rosenthal began his career at The Bank of New York.

Mr. Rosenthal received a B.S. in business administration and accounting from he University of Florida. He currently serves on a number of advisory boards of start-up and not-for-profit entities and is an avid boater and long-distance cyclist.

Jeremy Liu, Secretary
Principal, Creative Ecology

Jeremy Liu is a Senior Fellow at PolicyLink, a national research and action institute advancing racial and economic equity, where he leads an initiative to integrate arts and culture into equitable development, including economic inclusion, housing, health equity, and policy change. He co-edited the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Community Development Innovation Review issue Transforming Community Development through Arts and Culture, he co-authored the PolicyLink report Creating Change: Arts, Culture, and Equitable Development, and contributed chapters to the National Endowment for the Arts’ book How to Do Creative Placemaking and the Routledge Handbook of Placemaking. He is also the managing partner of Creative Development Partners, an investment and real estate development firm that is pioneering the creation of “community benefits by design” ventures in hospitality and real estate.

Previously, he served as the chief executive of two community development and real estate social enterprises in Boston and in the Bay Area, for which he has held full P&L responsibility for a $15M operation, managing total assets of over $200M, a staff of 110, social service programs providing direct support to over 5,000 individuals, over two dozen properties including 2,000+ units of housing and 300,000 SF of commercial space, and a development pipeline of six-to-ten projects annually. His strategic repositioning of a nationally-recognized community development corporation from a focus on the activity of housing production and service provision to a performance focus on the social determinants of health has led a transformation across the entire community development sector. He also serves as a consultant and advisor to community developers, foundations, and businesses around the country.

Board Members

Olga Bautista
Executive Director, Southeast Environmental Task Force

Olga Bautista has a deep commitment to the future of South Chicago and has dedicated her professional career to improving the community. She currently serves as Executive Director of the Southeast Environmental Task Force (SETF). As one of the lead organizers for both the Southeast Side Coalition to Ban Petcoke and the Campaign to Stop General Iron, Olga has led local environmental justice campaigns that have forced federal, state and local politicians to address the pressing environmental issues in the 10th Ward. For the last decade, her work has been featured in local, national and international news outlets. Olga has also served her community as a Local School Council Parent Representative at John L. Marsh School, a YWCA Crisis Intervention Specialist, a Board Member of the Immigrant Defense Alliance, and a member of the Caucus of Rank and File Educators (CORE).

 

Asia Canady
Program and Partnerships Manager, Hunter Family Foundation

Asia co-leads Hunter Foundation's early childhood, K-12 learning + well-being, environmental stewardship, and food security investments. Additionally, Asia is responsible for ensuring the Foundation engages in strategic partnerships to drive long-term change. Prior to her time at Hunter, Asia served as a systems advocate for a national early childhood organization, and as Chief of Staff at a local education non-profit. Asia started her career as a Teach for America '13 corps member in New York City, where she taught for four years.

Committed to public service, Asia is a 2020 New Leaders Council fellow, has served as the Chair for the Greater Chicago Food Depository associate board, and sits on the Board for the Illinois Collaboration on Youth and Chicago Quilombo. Asia graduated from Occidental College with a BA in Urban and Environmental Policy. Additionally, she received her Master's in Teaching at Fordham University and her Master of Public Policy from the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.

 

Dayna Cole
Senior Technical Manager, Wondery

Dayna leads cross-functional initiatives and integrations that power large-scale podcast and audio experiences across engineering, product, and creative teams as Senior Technical Manager at podcast studio Wondery, a division of Amazon. She previously led platform engineering and data quality initiatives at Spotify as well as holding key roles at Microsoft and Accenture. Her expertise lies at the intersection of data quality, platform engineering, and content innovation, with a focus on ethical and equitable design in the digital media landscape.

A Detroit native, Dayna is passionate about using technology to empower communities and creative talent. She holds a B.S.E. in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan and M.S. in Engineering Management from Duke University, along with certifications in Music Business (Berklee College of Music) and Data Science (Northwestern University). Dayna is a lifetime member of the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) and proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc.

 

Katy Hansen
Director of Rural and Small Cities Program, Public Finance Initiative

Katy is committed to improving local public services. Before PFI, Katy worked to advance equity in federal assistance for water infrastructure as a Senior Advisor at the EPA and a Deputy Director at the Environmental Policy Innovation Center. She has also worked on increasing access to services with the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice in rural Alabama, the Association for Water and Rural Development in South Africa, and the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies in the Middle East. She holds a BS in Engineering from Montana State University, an MSc in Water Science, Policy, and Management from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar, and a PhD in Environmental Policy from Duke University.

 

Nina Idemudia, AICP
Chief Executive Officer, Center for Neighborhood Technology

Nina joined CNT in September 2023 as our CEO. As a native Detroiter, Nina understands firsthand how the built environment shapes the lives of society’s most vulnerable populations. This fuels her passion for empowering people to be change agents through urban planning. Read more about Nina on our staff page.

Katanya Raby
Planning Director, Far South Community Development Corporation

Katanya Raby is an urban planner, designer, artist, and activist. Katanya currently serves as the Director of Planning at Far South Community Development Corporation (CDC) and is the founding principal planner of Urban Dreams, LLC. She is also the founder of the Al Raby Foundation, a family-led organization that works to preserve the legacy of Al Raby’s civil rights work in Chicago. Katanya is an alumnus of the Chicago United for Equity Fellowship, co-founder and former president of Society of Black Urban Planners at the University of Illinois at Chicago and a board director with the American Planning Association Illinois Chapter.

 

Molly Rutzick
Senior Vice President, Red Stone Tax Exempt Funding

Molly Rutzick has been a professional in finance for over 15 years. As a commercial real estate lender, Ms. Rutzick has generated over $1 billion in commercial real estate loans over the course of her career in lending. Ms. Rutzick is currently Senior Vice President of Originations for Red Stone Tax Exempt Funding, providing the financing for the construction and preservation of affordable housing. Ms. Rutzick also serves as a board member at Riverton Community Housing and is a member of Minnesota Housing Partnership’s Investor Committee. Ms. Rutzick holds degrees in Finance and Risk Management from the University of Wisconsin-Madison business school and has completed her Associate in Risk Management certification through the Insurance Institute of America.

 

Brandy Stone
Executive Vice President of Integrated PR & Purpose-Driven Strategies, Havas

Brandy Stone is a distinguished PR/integrated marketing specialist with 15 years of diverse experience across the consumer sector. As the youngest leader at Havas Creative agency, Brandy's achievements are remarkable and include driving revenue growth while serving as an exceptional thought leader and mentor. She has also reshaped the agency’s approach to purpose-driven strategies with a special focus on developing and implementing socially responsible initiatives that progress and foster diverse, equitable and inclusive programming to drive societal change.

Her portfolio of client experience spans brands such as Progressive, Wells Fargo, Wayfair, Keurig Dr Pepper, Airwick, UGG, Panda Express, Jaguar Land Rover, Norwegian Cruise Line, Paris Saint-Germain, Trane Technologies and more. Additionally, Brandy has taken on the role of Village Integrator within the agency. Her efforts aim to unite Havas' network of agencies and drive organic client growth through collaboration across disciplines like advertising, creative, PR, and media buying. Her contributions in this role have led to significant wins and expanded client work across the broader Havas Network.

Brandy holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from California State University-Northride, specializing in PR and a Master of Arts degree in communication management at University of Southern California.

Chris Wheat
Managing Director for Policy and Government Affairs, Sustainable Cities Fund

Chris Wheat is Managing Director for Policy and Government Affairs, Sustainable Cities Fund. The Fund works with donors to support and enable equitable climate action at the local level. Through strategic grant-making, it focuses on building the civic power of cities and communities, working together to implement ambitious, equitable climate solutions. The Fund also leverages and aligns state, federal, and international resources alongside cross-sector engagement to enable and amplify local progress.

Chris joined the Fund from the Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State at Chicago Booth, where he served as Executive Director. Previously Chris worked alongside Mayors to adopt environmental policies as Strategy and City Engagement Director for the American Cities Climate Challenge at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Before NRDC, Chris spent seven years in various roles in the Office of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, including Chief of Policy, Chief Sustainability Officer, and Innovation Delivery Team Director. Chris also serves as an Adjunct Professor of Strategy at Chicago Booth, Vice-Chair of the Chicago Development Commission, and is on the Board of the Center for Neighborhood Technology. A native of Little Rock, Arkansas, Chris holds a BA from Washington University in St. Louis and an MBA from Chicago Booth.

 

Nicholas Zettel
Adjunct instructor, DePaul University Department of Geography and GIS and Chief of Staff, 1st Ward Ald. Daniel La Spata

Nicholas is an urban planning and policy professional interested in making Chicago a more welcoming place for everyone. He wants to be a part of an urban planning profession that centers justice, mobility, and emancipation. Formally trained in the advocacy planning and equity planning tradition out of the University of Illinois at Chicago and Nathalie P. Voorhees Center for Neighborhood and Community Improvement, his professional practice sits at the intersection of economic development, land use planning, and affordable housing.

Nicholas has worked as an adjunct instructor at DePaul University since spring 2022, where he most recently developed a Land Use Planning and Policy undergraduate course that is cross-listed in the Geography and GIS and Public Policy Studies departments. At the 1st Ward Aldermanic Ward Office, Nicholas serves as Chief of Staff, where he implements Alderman Daniel La Spata's policy and services priorities, leading a full-time staff of three employees to develop community engagement, City Council ordinance research and submittals, infrastructure and business development, and constituent services and advocacy. He has also served as a Steering Committee member for the Metropolitan Planning Council Zoning & Land Use Assessment, and is an individual member of the Chicago Area Fair Housing Alliance and American Planning Association (Illinois).