The Joyce Foundation is pleased to welcome to its board of directors Steven Koch, a corporate leader who most recently was interim CEO of bike share company Motivate, and Nicholas Turner, president and director of the Vera Institute of Justice.
Koch was a deputy mayor of Chicago from 2012-2017, responsible for economic development and job creation, and rebuilding Chicago’s post-recession economy. Prior to that he spent 27 years at Credit Suisse, leading the global mergers and acquisitions group and advising on landmark transactions totaling more than $1 trillion. Koch also helped develop and teaches in the Directors’ Consortium, a training seminar for directors of public companies, sponsored by the University of Chicago and Stanford University.
Turner became Vera’s president and director in 2013. Under his leadership, the New York-based independent research and policy nonprofit committed to, as its core mission, dismantling mass incarceration and criminalization of people of color, immigrants and people experiencing poverty. Turner—Vera’s first president and director of color—also previously served the organization from 1998-2007, guiding expansion of its national initiatives and creating a youth justice program.
"Steve and Nick will bring exceptional policy-making experience to the Joyce board," said Joyce Board Chairman José Alvarez. "We are very excited about the contributions they will make to Foundation."
"Joyce’s legacy of advancing racial equity and economic mobility is perfectly aligned with my values," Koch said. "I’m proud to join my fellow board members in finding solutions to the most critical issues facing our region."
Koch received his BA from Hampshire College, and both his MBA and JD (cum laude) from the University of Chicago. He was a Henry Luce Fellow and served as a law clerk for Judge Richard Cudahy of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. After leaving his role as deputy mayor in 2017, Koch biked the entire length of the Mississippi River to raise $1 million for the Greater Chicago Food Depository, where he is a board member.
Turner received his BA from Yale University and is a graduate of Yale Law School. He was a judicial clerk for the late Judge Jack B. Weinstein, senior judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Prior to rejoining Vera in 2013, Nick was a managing director at the Rockefeller Foundation, where he was a member of the foundation’s senior leadership team.
"Joyce’s commitment to funding evidence-based policy and research on the region’s most pressing issues is formidable," Turner said. "I’m proud to join this team and get to work with my fellow board members in furthering this important work.”
The Chicago-based Joyce Foundation is a private, nonpartisan philanthropy that invests in public policies and strategies to advance racial equity and economic mobility for the next generation in the Great Lakes region. It supports policy research, development, and advocacy in six program areas: Culture, Democracy, Education & Economic Mobility, Environment, Gun Violence Prevention & Justice Reform, and Journalism.