Amelia Jackson

Associate Director of Career Development

Email: anjacksn@uic.edu

Before becoming the associate director of career development for Break Through Tech Chicago, Amelia Jackson worked to employ Chicago’s unemployed and underemployed as a business developer in the Cook County Workforce Partnership through employment and employer services. She coached and trained job-seekers to understand the needs of the marketplace and to develop strategies that would help them obtain lucrative careers in their areas of interest. Jackson became a catalyst for career development when she noticed a major divide in urban communities as it related to job opportunities that yielded livable wages for underserved populations.

Jackson also has served as president of the National Black MBA Association, Chicago Chapter. In this servant-leader role, she worked to align the chapter with organizations that sought to further their diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. She incorporates many principles learned in this work into her Break Through Tech Chicago responsibilities, working strategically to help companies build environments that foster innovation, career and educational opportunities, and diversity of thought by placing women in highly compensated tech roles.

Jackson earned her bachelor of arts in speech communications from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and received her MBA in marketing from the Keller Graduate School of Management. She worked in the finance industry for more than eight years, holding positions at Fortune 500 companies such as JPMorgan Chase and Capital One, and looks forward to being a contributor to the UIC community.