Bryan K. Echols has spent his career moving between the worlds of finance, community organising and public policy, often at the points where they intersect. He is currently the Deputy Director of Impact Investments and Senior Advisor in the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office, a role that draws on every stage of a varied professional life.
A graduate of Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Echols began in banking and financial services, working with First Chicago Bank, Massachusetts Mutual and TCF Bank before transitioning into the nonprofit sector as a community organiser and policy advocate focused on Black men and boys.
In 2010, his team presented a national policy platform to the White House, elements of which later helped shape the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance.
His most visible impact came in 2020, when he was asked to lead an examination of racial disparities in banking investments following the national reckoning over the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.
Through the Advancing Equity in Banking initiative, approximately $19 billion was directed into Black and Brown communities across the Chicago region. Echols has said that moment was when every step of his journey made sense.
In 2026 he was named a Chicago Defender Men of Excellence honoree, recognition that he described as deeply humbling precisely because it came from his own community.
The son of parents active in the Civil Rights Movement, and the youngest of seven children, he credits them with teaching him to stand up for the underdog and to make an unfair fight fair. He is also the husband of Illinois Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton.
Echols’s work is guided by a simple conviction: that communities of colour should not merely be represented in the conversation, but should be architects of the systems that shape their future. It is a principle he has pursued across banking, organising and government, and one that continues to define his public service.
