Meet the team working for you.
The Partnership is comprised of workforce development, fiscal and administrative professionals whose experience and dedication improve services, reduce costs and support job creation and economic development across the county-wide workforce system.
Contact Karin
The Partnership’s Leader – Karin M. Norington-Reaves
CEO, Public Servant, Philanthropist
Karin M. Norington-Reaves is a lifelong public servant with more than 25 years of experience in education, law, advocacy, community, and workforce development. In 2012, Karin was named the founding Chief Executive Officer of The Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership (The Partnership) by then-Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle. As CEO and change agent, she led the merger and restructuring of three diverse workforce systems to create the nation’s most extensive public workforce system managed by a non-profit administrative agency.
Karin’s leadership of The Partnership exemplifies the belief that workforce development is the cornerstone of economic development. The organization’s credo, “economic empowerment through employment,” is brought to life every day through the work of The Partnership’s staff and its workforce development network.
Karin oversees the administration of federal, state and philanthropic funds and the creation of effective programs that ensure alignment between the skills demanded by a changing economy and those offered by the region’s labor force. She also works to generate both private and public funding to expand the services available throughout Chicagoland. Under her leadership, The Partnership’s network successfully pivoted to providing virtual services during the COVID-19 pandemic and The Partnership was awarded a $56 million grant by The City of Chicago and the Chicago Department of Public Health to lead the creation of the City’s community-based COVID19 Contact Tracing Corps.
