Chicago-area entrepreneur Jimmy Odom will join World Business Chicago as ChicagoNEXT’s first Director of Inclusive Entrepreneurship, the city announced Thursday.
As part of this new role, Odom will work with the just-announced ChicagoNEXT Inclusive Entrepreneurship Leadership Council (ChicagoNEXT IE Council) to support the Blackstone Challenge, which will award $3 million in grants over three years to organizations that recruit and support diverse entrepreneurs from communities of color, as well as women, veterans, and immigrants. They'll announce a cohort of between four and ten organizations that will receive funding later this spring.
“To drive inclusive economic growth and reverse decades of economic inequity, minority communities need a full range of resources to help start and scale local entrepreneurs,” said Deputy Mayor Andrea Zopp in a statement. “Under the leadership of Jimmy Odom and the ChicagoNEXT IE Council, the Blackstone Challenge will begin to help bolster these resources.”
Odom most recently served as the Acting Assistant Director for the Department of Central Management Services at the state of Illinois, and previously worked as Senior Advisor for Minority Business Development at the Illinois Department of Commerce, working to support minority entrepreneurs in the state. Before that, he founded WeDeliver, a hyperlocal delivery service that was acquired by San Francisco-based Deliv in 2015.
This news comes 10 days after Odom announced via Medium he would be leaving his job at the state of Illinois. In the post, he explained that he was disappointed in the continued lack of attention and resources invested in minority communities around the state.
He seems to have more faith in the team at World Business Chicago.
“I joined the ChicagoNEXT team because I view this as a real opportunity to support underserved communities,” said Odom in a statement regarding his new role. “Inclusive economic growth must be intentional, and I’m excited to manage a program that supports and amplifies organizations that serve marginalized entrepreneurs throughout Chicago.”
World Business Chicago also named the 13 civic and business leaders who will make up the ChicagoNEXT IE Council, including:
- Andrea Zopp, Deputy Mayor & Chief Neighborhood Development Officer for the City of Chicago, ex officio member
- Mark Tebbe, Chairman of ChicagoNEXT
- Amy Stursberg, Executive Director of the Blackstone Charitable Foundation
- Laura Ferris Anderson, Managing Director of JPMorgan Chase & Co.
- Shelley Stern Grach, Director of Civic Engagement for Microsoft Corporation
- William Heard, CEO & CIO of Heard Capital LLC
- Adolfo Hernandez, Director of Community Health for JB & MK Pritzker Family Foundation
- Israel Idonije, Founder of iF Charities
- Nichole Pinkard, Founder of Digital Youth Network, Associate Professor at DePaul University
- Neal Sales-Griffin, CEO of CodeNow
- Charles Smith, President & CEO of CS Insurance Strategies Inc.
- Susana Vasquez, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships for IFF
- Alex Washington, Managing Director of Wind Point Partners
