The Honorable Jane Campbell

Former Mayor
City of Cleveland
Washington, DC


Jane Cambell was the first - and to date only -woman elected Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio. Her election in 2001 followed 17 years in elected life including the Ohio House of Representatives and the Cuyahoga County Commission. Her work there focused on economic development including starting Ohio's first Brownfield Remediation Loan Fund and designing financing for Cleveland's stadiums, on investing in children and youth including implementing welfare reform with a keen focus on helping parents successfully enter or reenter the workforce with the needed skills and support including quality child care, and on financing health and human services.

As Mayor, Campbell resolved a $60M deficit, restored fiscal integrity and right sized the city government, built or rehabilitated 25,000 homes each year, led the Lakefront planning process that is still to this day guiding Cleveland's lakefront investment, designed the land assembly and financing strategy for the Flats East bank development along the Cuyahoga River, and brought the Small Business Development Center to Cleveland's Urban League to insure that minority business is well served. In addition Campbell brought the CityStat accountability process to police response time, building and housing permits and inspections and park maintenance.

After leaving her post a Mayor, Campbell served as a teaching fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Politics. She created a small business doing economic development counsulting where she led the successful community effort to structure incentives to allow Goodyear to reinvest in Akron, OH.

In 2009 Campbell came to DC as Sen. Mary Landrieu's chief of staff to assist with the Katrina rebuilding. She worked to create the RESTORE Act which dedicated 80% of the BP Oil Spill penalties to coastal restoration on the Gulf of Mexico, served as lead advisor on Health care reform and led Sen. Landrieu's team, including the Senate Small Business Committee where Campbell moved to serve as Staff Director in 2013. There she led work to address economic inequality by supporting entrepeneurship and insuring access to capital and contracting opportunity for underserved populations

At the end of 2014 Campbell opened the Washington Office of the National Development Council focused on advocacy for federal investment in community and economic development. When NDC closed that office in the fall of 2018 Campbell created her own business providing consulting in economic development and government relations with a special expertise in Opportunity Zones. She serves as a senior fellow at the International Economic Development Council.