November 7, 2024

Election ’24 Results: The Known and Unknown – Dive into the preliminary election outcomes and what they mean for Chicago and the region – Featuring: Anne Caprara, Greg Hart, Christian Perry, and Paris Schutz

City Club event description:

Featuring Anne Caprara, Chief of Staff to Governor J.B. Pritzker, Greg Hart, Former DuPage County Board Member, Christian Perry, Political Director to Mayor Brandon Johnson, and Paris Schutz, Political Correspondent for Fox Chicago, this dynamic conversation will explore the path forward, focusing on how innovative partnerships and collaborations can continue to strengthen our communities.

Speakers

Anne Caprara
Anne Caprara is the Chief of Staff to Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. Anne Caprara has managed and consulted with candidates and elected officials at every level of state and federal government. Caprara was also the campaign manager for Pritzker’s successful gubernatorial campaign in 2018 where he defeated the Republican incumbent by almost 16 points. Before that, Caprara served as the Executive Director for Priorities USA Action, the main SuperPAC supporting Hillary Clinton for President in 2016.

In 2014, she was political director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, helping to oversee Senate races in 33 states. In 2011 and 2012, Caprara served as the DSCC’s Deputy Political Director, covering all Senate races east of Wisconsin. In 2008, she was the campaign manager for Betsy Markey, a first-time candidate running against a 3-term Republican Congresswoman in Colorado’s 4th congressional district. Markey won by the race by 12 points and over 41,000 votes in a district where Republicans outnumber Democrats by 45,000 voters. Caprara subsequently served as Markey’s Chief of Staff from 2008 until 2010. She has also worked as Chief of Staff for Ohio Congresswoman Betty Sutton and as the Deputy Research Director at EMILY’s List.

Caprara obtained her Master’s degree from George Washington University and her undergraduate degree from American University.

Greg Hart
Greg Hart is a management consultant and former DuPage County Board Member who represented nearly 1 million residents in the western suburbs of Chicago from 2017-2023.

Greg was appointed to the DuPage County Board in 2017 by Chairman Dan Cronin and was subsequently elected to a full, four-year term in 2018 at the age of 30 – becoming the first millennial of his party to serve on the board of Illinois’ second largest county.

During his time on the County Board, Greg led DuPage’s response to the opioid epidemic as Co-Chair of the Heroin-Opioid Prevention & Education (HOPE) Taskforce. His leadership of the HOPE Taskforce won DuPage County two national achievement awards from the National Association of Counties for innovation. During the final year of Greg’s tenure as Co-Chair, opioid overdoses in DuPage decreased by 9%, outperforming state and national averages. As a result, he is widely credited with helping establish DuPage as a national leader in fighting substance use disorder.

Greg also served as Chairman of DuPage County’s Technology and Human Services Committees, where he respectively led the largest investment in IT infrastructure in the last quarter century and saved taxpayers one million dollars annually by implementing operational efficiency practices. Greg also spearheaded a “first of its kind” initiative to for new business enterprise programs for minority-owned, women-owned, and veteran-owned firms in DuPage County. Greg was consistently regarded as the most bipartisan member of the DuPage County Board.

Outside of politics, Greg serves as a Senior Managing Consultant and Owner at Point B, Inc., where he advises Fortune 100 clients on how to implement organizational change during mergers, acquisitions, and enterprise-wide technology transformations. Prior to joining Point B in 2018, he served in management roles at Deloitte Consulting and Booz Allen Hamilton.

Greg graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and received his MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Greg is philanthropically active in Chicagoland, serving on the Board of Directors for the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, the Boy Scouts of America Three Fires Council, Path to Recovery Foundation, and the Selection Committee for the Edgar Fellows Program at the University of Illinois. He lives in Hinsdale with his wife Alexandra and his three young children Madeleine, George, and Catherine.

City Club video

Christian Perry
Christian Perry is the Political Director for Mayor Brandon Johnson. Christian is a Political Scientist, Community Organizer and Civic Innovator from the Southside of Chicago. Christian is a proud Navy Veteran, Board of Trustee Member at Trinity Christian College, and serves on the Board of Directors for the South Suburban Council on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse. He is the Co-Founder of Black Millennial Renaissance, a network of Black Millennials and their allies fighting to end systemic racism. In the summer of 2020 BMR executed The Right To Breathe March & Rally leading over 500 people in Palos Heights as they honored the lives of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, they called for justice, equity and active Allyship. Christian is an MPA candidate at Northern Illinois University, he was the inaugural Director of Community Development for the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority and served as Deputy Political Director for Governor JB Pritzker’s re-election campaign.

Paris Schutz
Paris Schutz is Political Correspondent for Fox Chicago.

Schutz comes to Fox after 19 years at WTTW Chicago, most recently as investigative reporter and anchor of the nightly “Chicago Tonight” program and moderator of “The Week in Review.”

Before that, he was the station’s chief political correspondent, covering multiple political conventions, elections, and corruption investigations.

Schutz has earned two Midwest Emmy’s and 8 Peter Lisagor Awards, three of them for “Best TV reporter,” and one for a documentary he produced and reported about the candidacy of Illinois Governor JB Pritzker.

Schutz is a native of River Forest, Ill., a graduate of St. Ignatius College Prep, and a keyboardist and singer-songwriter in his spare time.

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