Administration

Chief of staff – Brittany Zaehringer

Secretary to the mayor – Teresa Lloyd

Secretary to the mayor – Laurie Hoffman

Secretary to the mayor – Vacant

  • Performs a broad and varied range of administrative support functions (greeting visitors, taking messages, screening and routing phone calls, answering routine questions, scheduling meetings, responding to email and correspondence, etc.) for the mayor and other cabinet or mayor’s office staff.
  • This position is needed to help accommodate the significant increase in outreach to the mayor’s office from the community, stakeholders, business leaders, representatives, and others.

Assistant to the mayor/chief of staff – Lauren Marsh

  • New role which assists the nayor and chief of staff with special projects and modernization of city processes and procedures, board and commission appointments, convening of large meetings, and scheduling. Attends large events with principal and/or on behalf of principal if unable to attend. Once the other assistant to the mayor is hired, this role will support the chief of staff. 
  • According to the mayor’s office, this position is needed in order to effectively and efficiently help modernize the city’s workflow processes and to assist with the increased engagement happening from the mayor’s office and staff.

Assistant to the mayor – Vacant

  • New role which will assist the mayor with his schedule, including preparing briefings for meetings, note-taking, and assisting with follow-up, as well as longer-term schedule management and assisting with special projects.
  • This entry-level position is needed to ensure the mayor is appropriately staffed and supported as he participates in meetings and events across the community. The volume of meetings with constituents, stakeholders, business leaders, non-profit organizations, community groups and more dictates a dedicated assistant for the mayor, the office’s job description says.

Read more: More council members question Akron Mayor Malik’s ‘top-heavy’ office

Strategy

Chief of strategy – Nanette Pitt

  • This new position oversees the implementation of the mayor’s strategic initiatives and priorities for the City of Akron, manages intergovernmental relationships for the city, and serves as the primary public-facing surrogate for the Mayor. The position is part of the mayor’s core executive team and works in collaboration with the mayor and chief of staff. 
  • Malik’s office said this position is needed to ensure the implementation of the mayor’s strategic vision for the City of Akron, as the role directs a team of strategists. Increased focus on education, safety, youth opportunity and more requires intentional relationship-building, stakeholder and public engagement, and interdepartmental work to ensure the city moves forward on all these initiatives. 

Public safety strategist – Anthony Ingram

  • New role focused on our community’s most pressing issue, according to the office. Will lead work on violence intervention and prevention programs.
  • This position is needed in order to help address violence in the City of Akron. A number of recent surveys of the community indicated that the number one concern for Akron residents was violence. Improving public safety is the top priority of this administration and requires someone waking up every day working towards making the city safer, the office said. 

Health and education strategist – Richelle Wardell

  • New role focused on key education and health priorities – universal pre-K, strengthening Akron’s out-of-school-time network for youth to enhance educational outcomes and reduce violence, ensure a focused approach toward reducing racial disparities in infant and maternal vitality, and strengthening our relationship with Akron Public Schools and higher education institutions.
  • This position is needed in order to strengthen the city’s ability to empower our youth. High on the list of concerns for Akron residents is education and ensuring quality education for all of Akron’s students, and that requires increased focus and investment in the form of a dedicated strategist. 

Policy and grants strategist – Emma Lieberth Osborn

  • New role focused on lobbying and intergovernmental affairs to ensure the city is able to fully tap available state and federal funding. The team has already secured $2.5 million for Cascade Plaza and $700,000 for the Word Church demolition and identified numerous grant opportunities for police, fire, sustainability, service and other departments, the office said.
  • This position is required in order to ensure that the city does not miss out on any available funding. It has already proven fruitful in the form of securing funding and creating useful connections with state and federal representatives. 

Grants manager – Tessa Smith (moved from Finance)

Youth opportunity strategist – Denico Buckley Knight

Public engagement strategist – Vacant

  • New role helping to coordinate public engagement promoting the goals of transparency and collaboration working across multiple departments and sectors to enable residents to engage with city processes, gain insight and provide feedback.
  • This position is needed to better engage with residents. This administration intends to do a significant amount of public engagement and outreach to better connect with residents, and investing in this role is an investment into that effort, the office said. 

Communications

Director of communications – Stephanie Marsh

Digital media manager – Alexis King

Digital media assistant – Patricia Porter

Data transparency strategist – Vacant 

  • New role designed to lead the effort to collect, identify, analyze and share city and other data and information in helpful ways for residents, workers and visitors. This position collaborates closely with cabinet-level leaders and staff to comprehend the city’s goals and objectives and identify data-driven strategies and inputs for effective decision-making and reporting. Data analytics helped the city identify more than 7,000 residents for automatic enrollment in the Akron Water Bill Assistance Program. The city could continue to leverage this type of decision-making with someone focusing on mining data analytics.
  • This position is needed in order to better utilize the data the city already has and to help create new data sets for the city to use moving forward. Once this data is identified, this strategist will work with our communications team to share all available data from the city to increase the city’s transparency, the mayor’s office said. 

Office of sustainability and resiliency

Director of sustainability and resiliency – Casey Shevlin

  • New role providing leadership around city initiatives involving environmental sustainability, including fleet electrification, EV charging, tree canopy preservation, green building standards, optimizing service routes, and emissions tracking and reductions. The director will work to build city culture around environmental sustainability within city departments, working closely with individuals across the city whose work is linked to the environment, particularly in Service and Public Utilities, Planning, and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion.
  • This position is needed in order to more effectively focus the city’s efforts on the environment, the mayor’s office said. Our environment is the most precious resource we have available, and it is this administration’s belief that we have a responsibility to actively protect our living environment, which is what this investment will help do. 

Environmental policy specialist – Vacant

  • New role specializing in environmental-related research, benchmarking and policy and data analysis. They will assist in determining sustainability-related policies and practices as well as developing city programs and projects/initiatives across sustainability areas.
  • This position is needed to properly staff and assist the Office of Sustainability and Resiliency in its goal of creating a more sustainable and environmentally friendly city government and to build the foundation for the department, the mayor’s office said. 

Office of DEI

Director of DEI – Esther Thomas

Cultural engagement coordinator – Summer Hall (moved from Economic Development)

Supplier diversity officer – Vacant (moved from Finance and Engineering)

Roles discontinued

Deputy chief of staff

Deputy mayor for intergovernmental relations

Senior strategic advisor

Signal background

Government Reporter (he/him)
Doug Brown covers all things connected to the government in the city. He strives to hold elected officials and other powerful figures accountable to the community through easily digestible stories about complex issues. Prior to joining Signal Akron, Doug was a communications staffer at the ACLU of Oregon, news reporter for the Portland Mercury, staff writer for Cleveland Scene, and writer for Deadspin.com, among other roles. He has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Hiram College and a master’s degree in journalism from Kent State University.