Dr. Alaina Jackson
Managing Director
Dr. Alaina Jackson is an alumna of Northwestern University in Evanston, IL where, in 2001, she graduated with a joint Bachelor’s of Science in Organizational Communications and Urban Studies, and a minor in Business Institutions. Upon graduating, she was hired into the management trainee program of Robert Bosch Corporation where, during her tenure, she had the opportunity to work and live in various countries, such as Germany, France, Brazil, and Mexico. While at Bosch, she developed a cross-cultural training meant to prepare German, Spanish, Mexican and American managers to lead teams in each other’s countries, a conflict- resolution model specifically intended for international work settings, and assessed and resolved personnel and organizational culture-related challenges affecting the company’s productivity and profit targets.
After seven years at Robert Bosch, Dr. Jackson returned to the United States to attend graduate school at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA, where she earned her Masters of Planning in 2009, and then her Doctorate of Policy, Planning, and Development in 2015. During that time, her consulting and research focused on local economic development models, the stabilization and growth of industrial and occupational clusters, and the scaled growth and strategic planning of employee-owned businesses and social enterprises.
After graduation she joined Operation HOPE, an international financial literacy non-profit, where she worked as an Applied Social Scientist and worked on a diverse range of projects related to the company’s programmatic and organizational transformation and growth, such as the revision and digitization of its national financial literacy and entrepreneurship curriculums, and the integration of data driven decision-making into its programming model.
In 2017, Dr. Jackson was awarded the Detroit Revitalization Fellowship where she was placed at the United Way for Southeastern Michigan as the Program Director for Workforce and Talent Initiative (Foundational Skills). In this role, she co-led a collaborative effort to improve the workforce development pipeline in Detroit by funding innovative workforce development models which integrated adult foundational skills into their curriculums and which comprehensively addressed structural barriers to employee recruitment and retention. After the United Way, Dr. Jackson joined the City:One team at Ford Motor Company, as the Community Experience and Research Lead where she led the design and implementation of the community engagement and research strategies in historically underserved communities, focusing on mobility solutions that could positively impact equity, accessibility, safety, or sustainability.
Dr. Jackson has a professional background in finance and urban planning, and a consulting and research background in local economic development, social enterprises, and employee-owned cooperatives. Her experience spans 20 years to create a unique professional profile rooted in a desire to improve the quality of life for historically disenfranchised and marginalized communities, through research, grassroots activism, the application of equity frameworks, and the promotion of innovative community economic development solutions.
Dr. Jackson is an active member of the Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc., where she serves as regional officer and a member of the Central Region Board of Directors. She also maintains active membership in the American Planning Association, and the Detroit unit of the National Association of Parliamentarians. She is a Detroit native and Cass Tech alumna, and has been married to Carlos Salcedo Maldonado since 2006.