Sekile M. Nzinga

Sekile M. Nzinga was appointed as the inaugural Chief Equity Officer for the State of Illinois and the Deputy Chief of Staff for Equity for Gov JB Pritzker. She is the former Women’s Center Director  and interim Chief Diversity Officer at Northwestern University. Prior to working as a senior administrator at Northwestern, she was a professor of Social Work and Women and Gender Studies. She is the author of Lean Semesters: How the University Reproduces Inequity (JHU Press, 2020) and the editor of Laboring Positions: Black Women, Mothering and the Academy (Demeter, 2013). She also is the former board chair and a former board member of the Chicago Abortion Fund and serves on the board of Chicago Radical Mamas.

Nzinga’s professional practice and community engaged work have focused on educational policy; reproductive health and justice; and executive leadership for progressive, social justice oriented, and feminist not-for-profit organizations.