Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives, The Chicago Community Trust
Cheryl Hughes serves as senior director of strategic initiatives for The Chicago Community Trust and as a member of the Trust’s leadership team. She is responsible for developing internal and external engagement strategies and initiatives and overseeing the Trust’s yearlong centennial initiative in 2015-2016.
In 2014, Hughes oversaw the creation, planning and implementation of On the Table, an ambitious future-driven celebration of the Trust’s 99th anniversary and the Trust’s largest public-facing initiative to date. She also created and produced the successful 95th, 96th and 98th anniversary celebrations. In 2012, she directed an international project team to host the 12th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Chicago, the first time the group had assembled in North America.
Hughes has an established career conceptualizing and leading new public initiatives that become established brands, replicated in other cities and institutions. Prior to joining the Trust, she served at the Museum of Science and Industry as executive director of Science Chicago, a yearlong public awareness and public engagement campaign. Previously, she was the director of program development for the City of Chicago, Mayor’s Office of Special Events, as well as the first executive director of Gallery 37. Hughes was named a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design where she studied theory and models of urban ephemera and temporary urbanism. She received a master of arts in social science from the University of Chicago and a bachelor of arts in education from Ohio State University.