A Better Chicago Names Adtalem Chairman and CEO Steve Beard as Board Chair
CHICAGO (10/8/25) – A Better Chicago, the city’s only venture philanthropy dedicated to expanding transformative opportunities for underserved youth, announced today that Steve Beard, Chairman and CEO of Adtalem Global Education, has been named Chair of the organization’s Board of Directors. Since its founding, A Better Chicago has invested over $83 million in Chicago’s most promising youth-focused nonprofits, using rigorous data analytics to identify and scale programs that deliver measurable results in education, career readiness, and life outcomes.
Beard brings proven expertise in advancing access to high-quality education and driving transformational change across corporate and nonprofit sectors. As head of Adtalem, he leads the nation’s largest healthcare educator, serving more than 90,000 students across five institutions. Under his leadership, Adtalem has become instrumental in addressing America’s critical healthcare workforce shortage while creating sustainable career pathways for students from diverse backgrounds.
“Steve Beard’s appointment comes at a pivotal moment for our organization,” said Beth Swanson, CEO of A Better Chicago. “His strategic acumen, combined with his demonstrated commitment to expanding educational opportunity, positions us to amplify our impact across Chicago. We’re fortunate to have a leader who understands how to align capital, talent, and evidence to create lasting systemic change.”
“Education opened every door for me,” said Steve Beard, Chair of A Better Chicago. “A Better Chicago’s disciplined, evidence-based approach to youth development can make Chicago the national model for creating opportunity at scale—proving that strategic capital, deployed with rigor, drives lasting change.”
In addition to his leadership at Adtalem, Beard brings decades of experience in law, strategy, corporate finance and organizational effectiveness. Prior to Adtalem, he served as Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer at Heidrick & Struggles and began his career in corporate law advising regulated industries on complex strategic matters.
Beard holds a J.D. from Indiana University Maurer School of Law, a bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and completed the Advanced Management Program at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. He has served on A Better Chicago’s board since 2014.
To learn more about A Better Chicago, please visit https://www.abetterchicago.org/
About A Better Chicago
A Better Chicago is a venture philanthropy that invests in the most promising nonprofits providing opportunity for youth experiencing poverty. We’re a supercharger. We have deployed more than $83 million in unrestricted funding and management support to help the nonprofits in our portfolio grow. Our donors want to make pivotal, well-researched investments that lift the outlook for our city.