• Children's Place Association provides essential and comprehensive services—early education, trauma therapy, support groups, basic healthcare—in Chicago's disinvested neighborhoods
• Mesirow Equity Management Chief Investment Officer DEI Council Chair Leo Harmon accepts award on behalf of Mesirow

CHICAGO, June 16, 2022 – Mesirow, an independent, employee-owned financial services firm, announced that the Children’s Place Association honored the firm with the Champion for Children award for dedication to the agency’s mission of breaking the cycle of poverty, illness, violence and racial injustice. Mesirow has been engaged with Children’s Place Association since its inception in the late 1990s, initially through engagement of now-Chairman and CEO Richard S. Price, and subsequently through Board membership, fundraising roles and hands-on volunteerism by employees from across the firm.

“Mesirow employees have served in nearly every volunteer role at Children’s Place – from Board members to Gala Chairs to hands-on caregivers for ill children in our programs,” said Children’s Place new CEO Cinaiya Stubbs. “No other partner has had such a sustaining impact on our organization and the youth we serve.”

Most recently, Mesirow has taken a leadership role in driving the success of the agency’s ChildThrive initiative and associated center in the West Humboldt Park neighborhood. Working collaboratively with community residents, this program serves to improve living conditions, increase resiliency in youth, strengthen the social fabric and enhance health and safety for all. Mesirow Senior Managing Director and Equity Management Chief Investment Officer Leo Harmon, who also chairs the Mesirow Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Council, serves on the ChildThrive committee, helping ensure strategic success and sustainability of the program.

“At Mesirow, we believe that ongoing investments in neighborhoods along with a commitment to social justice, opportunity, and inclusion are at the core of effecting true and sustainable change in the places where we and our clients live and work,” said Harmon. “Children’s Place puts those beliefs into action by working to support Chicago’s most vulnerable children and strengthening families as exemplified by their work to create ChildThrive. We are confident ChildThrive will foster holistic solutions that produce true and lasting change for the families served.”

Learn more about Mesirow’s work in the community and DEI strategies.

2022 Champion for Children award (received June 2022) is given annually by the Children’s Place Association for dedication to the agency’s mission of breaking the cycle of poverty, illness, violence and racial injustice. Rankings are based on the opinions of the Children’s Place Association, the advisor provides ongoing charitable contributions to the organization. The organization does not receive direct compensation from the advisor in exchange for placement on a ranking. Rankings and/or recognition by unaffiliated rating services and/or publications are not indicative of a firm’s future performance nor do they evaluate the quality of services provided to clients or guarantee that he/she will experience a certain level of results if Mesirow is engaged, or continues to be engaged, to provide investment advisory services, nor should they be construed as a current or past endorsement of Mesirow by any of its clients.