Meet Our Founder: Joe Ferguson
An authority on governance, with deep expertise in local and national government accountability.
Joe Ferguson recently concluded a 12-year tenure as Chicago’s Inspector General, leading a 100-person independent municipal oversight agency spanning the administrations of three mayors in the third largest city in the United States. Under his stewardship the Chicago Office of Inspector General (OIG) garnered national acclaim for its government performance audits and audit-based evaluations of an array of city agencies and programs, criminal and administrative investigations, and innovations in government data transparency.
Subject examples of investigative reports and audits include the murder of Laquan McDonald, the wrong raid of social worker Anjanette Young, the City’s Red Light Camera System, the City’s mishandling of the 2020 George Floyd Demonstrations and Civil Unrest, Chicago Police Department’s Gang Database, and Fire and Emergency Medical response times. Under Joe’s tenure, the OIG created an online information portal which includes over 30 interactive data dashboards on police activities.
Prior to being Chicago Inspector General, Ferguson spent 15 years in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois, representing the United States in trial and appellate court cases, ranging from civil litigation re: employment discrimination, civil rights, civil fraud, a landmark environmental case litigated to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the first ever use of civil forfeiture law against designated terrorists and terrorist organizations. He spent an additional ten years in the Criminal Division, where he investigated and prosecuted public corruption, financial, healthcare, tax and government program frauds, terrorist financing, and labor racketeering and narcotics trafficking cases.
Ferguson is the co-founder and co-director of the Loyola University (Chicago) Law School’s National Security and Civil Rights program, where he has taught for over a decade. He received his B.A. from Lake Forest College, which recently named him an honorary Doctor of Laws, and his J.D. from Northwestern University's Pritzker School of Law. His decades-long commitment to Chicago has yet to compromise his ardor for the professional sports teams from his native Boston.
Joe Ferguson
Executive Director
Board President
Meet our Board
Neal Sáles-Griffin
Managing Director
Techstars Chicago
Neal Sáles-Griffin is an entrepreneur, teacher, and investor. He co-founded the first beginner-focused in-person coding bootcamp, and most recently ran for mayor of Chicago. He's currently the Managing Director of Techstars Chicago, and is an Adjunct Professor at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering where he teaches entrepreneurship.
Austin Berg
Co-founder and CMO
Iron Light
Austin Berg is the co-founder and CMO of Iron Light, a digital marketing agency helping purpose-driven brands change the world. He and his work have been featured in the Economist, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, ABC 7 Chicago and WTTW. He is the winner of two Peter Lisagor Awards from the Chicago Headline Club for his photojournalism work, was honored as one of Chicago’s “20 in their 20s” by Crain’s Chicago Business, and appears weekly as a panelist on WGN's Mincing Rascals podcast. Austin is the co-author of “The New Chicago Way: Lessons from Other Big Cities,” published in 2019 by Southern Illinois University Press.