This former student voice advocate and organizer is joining our team to help us continue innovating our equitable hiring process and foster a healthy and thriving team culture.
By Lucia Anaya
Cristina Salgado (Photo: Lucia Lopez)
We’re excited to introduce the latest addition to our City Bureau team, Cristina Salgado, our new Director of People and Culture.
Prior to joining City Bureau, Cristina worked at Chicago Public Schools building student voice programs and creating space for adults to reimagine how they build with, not for, young people. She also comes from an organizing background working with communities in Albany Park, Little Village and Nicaragua.
With Cristina on board, we’re looking forward to exploring new ways of approaching our hiring process and improving our internal systems and structures.
Here’s a little bit about her.
Director of People and Culture is a new role at City Bureau. What impact do you see it having on the organization?
My role is to think about equitable hiring practices and how we can be creative and innovative within that process. The second piece is thinking about our organizational culture, ensuring our internal processes are creating a positive cultural workplace community. City Bureau does this already in so many ways and it’s one of the main reasons I was attracted to the organization. The impact I bring is supporting the leadership team with doing those things that they’re already doing and including the CB community in that innovation process. I say the CB community because I don’t think it’s about just including the staff but also all of the people that are connected to us. There are so many people that are part of our ecosystem that can be included in creating equitable processes. It’s important for us to reflect individually but also collectively about how we are actively being anti-racist in our everyday practices.
In your previous role, you helped recruit young people into leadership programs. Can you tell me a bit more about that work?
We were very innovative in how we recruited. We didn’t just send out the application and hope for the best, we were very intentional. We made sure not to include things in the application like asking them for their GPA or ask how many after school programs they were a part of. That didn't matter to us. What mattered most was how they defined community, for example, or what issues they saw in their school that they wanted to change.
What I learned in that process was that we were opening the door to students that are often left behind or are often not targeted or chosen. Most of the time the students that apply for leadership positions are students that are traditional leaders and are looking for something to put on their college application. We were looking for students that are considered non-traditional student leaders, they have a lot to say about their community and about their identity.
How do you see that experience transferring to your role as Director of People and Culture?
Depending on what the role is we have to go a little bit above and beyond to find those people that wouldn't normally apply. Because in my own process of trying to find a new job, I told myself that's not me. I don't qualify. Looking at the description for this position, I was a little intimidated because I knew it was HR and that wasn’t my background. But I also knew I had a lot of skills that were transferable. So for me, it's really thinking about ways we create a space where people feel like they do fit in and motivate them to apply.
Tell me a bit about yourself. What are your ties to Chicago and what’s one of your favorite things about living here?
I grew up in Logan Square (before it was gentrified) and Belmont Cragin but I have lived for most of my adult life in Little Village and North Lawndale. One of the things I love about Chicago, especially living in Little Village, is that people have this sense of pride in their neighborhood and they’re willing to organize and demand change. I come from an organizing background. I've been involved in a lot of political campaigns and community activism. Building relationships over time with many organizers in Little Village made me feel at home and part of a community. I have learned so much from them.
What do you want to say to folks in the CB community who are reading this blog?
I’d like to tell people out there, especially our BIPOC, queer and gender non-conforming communities, that you do belong. You do have the skills and you are enough. Taking the time to even just apply is courageous. Imposter syndrome is real, acknowledge that. Find your mentors and lean on those who see your assets and value both your professional experience and your cultural lived experience.
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