Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
Angela Smith Jones, deputy mayor for economic development for Indianapolis since 2016, is leaving mayor’s administration to join Health and Hospital Corp. as the vice president of diversity and inclusion.
Smith Jones will start the new job Sept. 14, the mayor’s office announced Friday.
As deputy mayor for economic development, Smith Jones has overseen Develop Indy, the city’s economic development organization; Employ Indy, the city’s workforce improvement board; and the Office of Minority and Women Business Development.
The mayor’s office said Smith Jones was integral to the creation and implementation of the city’s Roadmap for Inclusive Economic Growth. She also facilitated the first city contract disparity study in 25 years.
“Over the last four years, Angela has served as an enthusiastic ambassador for Indianapolis and a constant advocate for workers, businesses, and the ecosystem of local industries,” Mayor Joe Hogsett said in written remarks. “Her leadership helped to shape our city’s skyline and grow our global reputation; she also helped foster the growth of Indianapolis’s marketing tech sector during that span. I am grateful for the opportunity to continue working with her in her new capacity at HHC.”
Before joining city government, Smith Jones served as general counsel and director of policy and legislative affairs during a five-year stint with the Indy Chamber.
Prior to that, she spent 11 years as director with the Indiana Professional Licensing Agency.
Smith Jones serves on the boards of Employ Indy, 16 Tech Community Corp. and Innovation District, the IUPUI Board of Advisors, and the Stanley K. Lacy Advisory Board.
Smith Jones was named a Woman of Influence by IBJ in 2017.
“We are so fortunate that Angela is joining the Health and Hospital Corp.,” said outgoing HHC chief executive Matthew Gutwein in written remarks. “Angela is an extraordinarily talented person and deeply committed public servant. She brings to this critical role a wealth of experience in government, the community and the private sector.”
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.
any compliment from Matt Gutwein seems somewhere between meaningless and embarrassing.
Angela will be a great asset as HHC tries to get back on track!
How is HHC off track?
Explain exactly what benefit any of her policies had on anyone beside it giving her a salary.
When will we stop making policies and hiring empty suits based on skin color?
Let’s move on from the racist past of the Democratic Party of slavery and Jim Crow
Glad to see her go. In 2017, via DMD she tried to ramrod through a wholly inappropriate (statutorily ineligible) tax abatement for student loanster Sallie Mae Bank at its office building at Keystone at the Crossing. Fortunately, citizen engagement exposed the charade and, at the urging of red-faced politicos, including Smith Jones, Sallie Mae reluctantly withdrew the abatement application due to lousy political optics and a probable embarrassing public hearing before the Metropolitan Development Commission. With the recent departure of DMD’s Emily Mack, and hopefully others, the city hall air is beginning to clear and perhaps ethics standards and legal requirements will be better respected with new people.
it is refreshing to read specific issues rather than hyperbole and a total lack of decorum.
Unfortunately, the local business press did not see fit to report the Sallie Mae abatement application, the resulting community pushback, or the result. Community remonstrance, and civic engagement, don’t seem to be much appreciated. “So it goes”, as Kurt Vonnegut lamented. Civic Engagement is the theme of the soon-to-be-released 2020 edition of the Vonnegut Museum and Library’s So It Goes Journal.
I’m sure the folks at Black Market and Rook are very happy for her.