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CINCINNATI — Mayors from four of Ohio’s biggest cities are part of a select group of city leaders from across the globe taking part in a prestigious leadership program led by educators from Harvard University.

The mayors of Cincinnati, Cleveland, Dayton and Toledo are members of this year’s Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative. It includes 40 mayors from cities on three different continents.

It’s an intensive, year-long management program focused on helping equip mayors and senior municipal officials with tools to tackle the challenges facing their respective cities to improve the quality of life of residents. 

The in-person portion of the event kicked off Monday in New York City.

“We are honored that the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative has recognized the promise of our hard work to move Cincinnati forward,” Mayor Aftab Pureval said.

Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval is one of the members of this year’s Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative.

The first-term mayor feels proud to have such a “valuable opportunity to collaborate with city leadership experts across the country.” He described the program to bring new ideas and innovations back to Cincinnati. 

“This investment is an exciting step forward in our growth,” he added.

The Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative is the flagship program of the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University. The nonpartisan program is a collaboration between Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Business School and Bloomberg Philanthropies, an international nonprofit founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Bloomberg Philanthropies works on several city-centric programs, especially in government innovation. The organization worked with Harvard to create the program to provide training to municipal leaders. 

Businesses in the private sector invest more than $42 billion each year in executive development, the foundation said in a release. But there are far fewer opportunities for those working in the public sector or government levels.

“With all the urgent shared challenges facing cities, the opportunity for mayors to exchange ideas and learn from one another and experts is more important than ever,” Bloomberg said in a release. “We’re looking forward to working with them throughout the year, and to seeing the results in their cities.”

This cohort — the sixth in program history — will take part in a hybrid learning style. It will include a mixture of in-person and virtual classes taught by leading experts in a variety of topics ranging from effective teaming and the use of data to innovation and civic engagement. 

Bloomberg Philanthropies financially supports the program. No taxpayer money is used to fund the trip or the program.

This week, the mayors, including all four from Ohio, are taking part in a four-day, immersive classroom experience with Harvard faculty.

Each mayor will pick two members of their team to take part in the program based on their specific set of skills and the needs of their city. Their classroom work starts in August.

The group will also have virtual meetings every month, and there are plans for so-called field opportunities as well. Those will focus on the specific government policies or specific needs facing the individual cities.

“We’re now in our sixth year of working directly with mayors, who serve in crucial leadership roles in so many ways,” said David Margalit, executive director of the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University. “Through this program, we’re able to bring together the collective know-how of Harvard, Bloomberg, and 40 leading mayors to support these mayors’ drive to innovate, strengthen their city halls, and improve the lives of residents in their cities.”

The admission process is competitive. Each mayor had to submit a detailed application that explained their top policy priorities and the major challenges affecting their city.

Over the next year, the group will work together, exchange ideas and discuss approaches for addressing those specific issues and some that are more universal.

Dayton Mayor Jeffrey J. Mims is a longtime city leader but in his first term as mayor. (Spectrum News 1)

Sessions will cover a range of topics, from driving government performance to resident engagement. 

Mayor Jeffrey J. Mims, who won election in Dayton last year, listed job creation, housing issues and investment in neighborhoods as priority issues for his community.

He looks forward to learning from some of the top subject experts and academics. But he’s also excited to learn from his peers in city halls to collaborate on solutions to “the concerns we share.”

The other Ohio mayors taking part are Justin Bibb of Cleveland and Toledo’s Wade Kapszukiewicz. All four participating Ohio mayors are Democrats.

“My team is invested in using data to diagnose problems, collaborating across sectors, and engaging our citizens to address these challenges in a way that makes the most sense for our community,” Mims said.

Launched in 2017, the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative team has worked with 428 mayors and 1,400 senior city officials in 494 cities.

Organizers gear the program toward individual leaders rather than places, so some cities have had more than one mayor take part. Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms was a part of the program before leaving to join the administration of President Joe Biden.

Atlanta’s current mayor, Andre Dickens, is taking part this year.

This 2022 class is one of the most diverse, both in terms of geographies and experiences, in program history.

More than half of the mayors identify as people of color, including 14 Black mayors. That includes three of Ohio’s four mayors who are taking part — Bibb, Mims and Pureval.

Twelve members of this year’s program come from cities outside the United States, mostly in Europe and Africa. Luis Donaldo Colosio Riojas, the mayor of Monterrey, Mexico, is part of the class as well.

Besides the global cities represented, there are mayors from many parts of the U.S. from major metropolitan cities to places with less than 100,000 residents.

“Around the world today, mayors are leading the way with innovative approaches to social and economic recovery,” Bibb said. “I look forward to bringing back lessons learned to deliver on the promise of a modern and responsive city hall for all Clevelanders.”

More information is available on the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative website.

2022 Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative class

• Matt Tuerk – Allentown, Pa.

• Brian Kulpa – Amherst, N.Y.

• Andre Dickens – Atlanta

• Rohey Malick Lowe – Banjul, The Gambia

• Lacey Beaty – Beaverton, Ore.

• Lauren McLean – Boise, Idaho

• Michelle Wu – Boston 

• Aftab Pureval – Cincinnati

• Justin Bibb – Cleveland

• Daniel Rickenmann – Columbia, S.C.

• Emma Sharif – Compton, Calif.

• Jeffrey J. Mims – Dayton, Ohio

• Abdullah Hammoud – Dearborn, Mich.

• Elaine O’Neal – Durham, N.C.

• Joe Schember – Erie, Penn.

• Susan Aitken – Glasgow, Scotland

• Juhana Vartiainen – Helsinki, Finland

• Tyrone Garner – Kansas City, Kansas

• Pudence Rubingisa – Kigali, Rwanda

• Chilando Chitangala – Lusaka, Zambia

• Cavalier Johnson – Milwaukee

• Luis Donaldo Colosio Riojas – Monterrey, Mexico

• Jon Mitchell – New Bedford, Mass.

• Ed Gainey – Pittsburgh

• Malik Evans – Rochester, N.Y.

• Darrell Steinberg – Sacramento, Calif.

• Todd Gloria – San Diego

• Benjamina Karić – Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

• Danela Arsovska – Skopje, North Macedonia

• Oliver Coppard – South Yorkshire, England

• Caroline Simmons – Stamford, Conn.

• Kenneth Welch – St. Petersburg, Fla.

• Larry Klein – Sunnyvale, Calif.

• Wade Kapszukiewicz – Toledo, Ohio

• Mike Padilla – Topeka, Kan.

• Minna Arve – Turku, Finland

• Anne McEnerny-Ogle – Vancouver, Wash.

• Quentin Hart – Waterloo, Iowa

• Dan Norris – West of England, England

• Tracy Brabin – West Yorkshire, England