Suzet M. McKinney, Dr.P.H., M.P.H., is a public health expert, medical executive, thought leader, strategic thinker and nationally recognized expert in emergency preparedness and response. As Principal and Director of Life Sciences for Sterling Bay, Dr. McKinney oversees relationships with the scientific, academic, corporate, tech, and governmental sectors involved in the life sciences ecosystem. She also leads the strategy to expand Sterling Bay’s footprint in life sciences nationwide. She previously served as CEO and Executive Director of the Illinois Medical District, where she managed a 24/7/365 environment that included 560 acres of medical research facilities, labs, a biotech business incubator, universities, raw land development areas, four hospitals and more than 40 healthcare-related facilities. Within two years of leadership, Dr. McKinney accomplished a financial turnaround of the IMD, successfully retiring more than $40 million in debt. In 2020, Dr. McKinney was appointed by Illinois Governor JB Pritzker as Operations Lead for the State of Illinois’ Alternate Care Facilities, a network of alternate medical locations designed to decompress the hospital system during the COVID-19 pandemic. She worked with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and multiple construction, architecture and project management teams to prepare five facilities to open for overflow patient care. Dr. McKinney is also an experienced on-camera expert who has frequently discussed healthcare disparities and racial inequities amplified by the pandemic, climate-related emergencies, biological and chemical threats and natural disasters. She’s been featured on CNN, ABC, NBC Nightly News, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Crain’s Chicago Businesses and The Chicago Tribune. Prior to leading the IMD, Dr. McKinney served as the Deputy Commissioner of the Bureau of Public Health Preparedness and Emergency Response at the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH), where she oversaw the emergency preparedness efforts for the Department and coordinated those efforts within the larger spectrum of the City of Chicago’s Public Safety activities, in addition to overseeing the Department’s Division of Women and Children’s Health. She also provided support to the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency, lending subject matter expertise in biological terrorism preparedness to the country of Poland. Previously, she served as the Sr. Advisor for Public Health and Preparedness at the Tauri Group, where she provided strategic and analytical consulting services to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS), BioWatch Program. Her work at DHS included providing creative, responsive and operationally based problem-solving for public health, emergency management and homeland security issues, specifically chemical and biological early detection systems and the implementation of those systems at the state and local levels.