S. Mayumi Grigsby

S. Mayumi "Umi" Grigsby is the chief of policy for the City of Chicago. She's also the chair and a commissioner on the Cook County Human Rights Commission and serves on the board of Planned Parenthood of Illinois. Previously, she was chief of staff at the Chicago Foundation for Women and the chief of policy and advocacy for the Office of the City Clerk of Chicago, under City Clerk Anna Valencia.

Under the leadership of City Clerk Anna Valencia, Grigsby was responsible for leading the city clerk’s policy initiatives, including the CityKey Municipal ID program, the Fines, Fees, and Access Collaborative, and the Status of Women and Girls’ Working Group. Additionally, she assisted Mayor Lightfoot's Racial Equity Rapid Response Team.

Grigsby has long pushed for policies that empower marginalized communities, particularly women and girls of color, to be the engineers of their own change. She previously held a variety of roles locally, nationally, and internationally in grant-making, policy development, and logistics, and in criminal justice and litigation. She worked in former President of Liberia Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s administration on an international colloquium bringing women from all over the world to Liberia to discuss leadership development, peace, and security. An attorney licensed to practice in Illinois, she also worked as an assistant state’s attorney.

Grigsby is a native Liberian, naturalized American, and adopted Chicagoan. She has served on the board of Between Friends for four years, an organization dedicated to eradicating domestic abuse in Chicago. Bilingual in French and English, she holds a bachelor’s degree in French and government from Georgetown University and graduated from Northeastern University’s School of Law with a concentration in international law and human rights.