Chicago 2016 Olympic Bid Team Now Unemployed, In Search of New Jobs

The networking started on the plane back from Copenhagen.

Their dreams of hosting the 2016 Olympics dashed, members of Chicago’s bid team found themselves facing unemployment following the International Olympic Committee’s selection of Rio de Janeiro on Oct. 2.

During the eight-hour trip home, supporters who traveled to Copenhagen began asking 2016 staffers about their futures, illustrating what should be a considerable advantage as they re-enter the labor force:

Having worked closely with a bid committee of nearly 400 civic leaders and donors from Chicago’s corporate and philanthropic communities, the Olympics crew should “be able to get in front of the right people,” says James Drury, CEO of Chicago-based James Drury Partners LLC, which recruits executives and board members.

“These are people who took a risk and did something for the greater good,” Mr. Drury says. “And they wouldn’t have been picked if they weren’t good at what they do. Those are the kinds of people that leaders of businesses look for.”

A few top staffers, such as President Lori Healey, 49, a City Hall veteran who most recently was the mayor’s chief of staff, polished their already formidable reputations working on the bid. Ms. Healey has been employed in both the private and public sectors, as a former city planning commissioner who later went to architecture firm Perkins & Will Inc. She declined to comment on her plans.

For younger staffers, the bid could provide a much bigger career boost, helping separate them from the crowd.

“A lot of times, it’s difficult to go from doing analysis to a leadership role,” says Kurt Summers, 30, a one-time consultant who left a job as chief financial officer at Balton Corp., a small Chicago supplier to food-service and janitorial companies, to become Ms. Healey’s chief of staff. “Previous jobs were solving a business or financial problem. This one was broader: government and international relations, messaging.”

Mr. Summers says he does not have firm plans yet.

“It’s like a political campaign: It’s amazing how quickly things wind down,” says Scott Leff, 44, a former McKinsey & Co. consultant who helped write the bid book. He’ll be out of a job Thursday, along with most of the 50 or so full-time 2016 staff.

While running an Olympics bid is unique, the skills “will translate very well to the corporate world,” says Carlos Cata, a Chicago-based managing partner at recruiter Heidrick & Struggles International Inc.

“The opportunity to meet so many of Chicago’s community and corporate leaders was phenomenal,” says John Murray, director of bid operations, who left McKinsey to join the bid in 2006. He says he’ll likely return to the private sector but will look for an opportunity to support civic causes.

Others who were on loan to the bid team will slide back into their old jobs. Patrick Sandusky, 34, who headed communications at 2016, will return to the Chicago office of public relations firm Hill & Knowlton Inc. and decide what to do next.

LOOKING FOR NEXT GIG

But the bid experience opens new doors for some. Cassandra Francis, 44, left Chicago-based real estate developer U.S. Equities Realty LLC to oversee development of the athletes’ village.

She says that with the real estate market in a slump, she’ll also look at non-profits or sports management.

Lori Igelski, 46, left a banking career and oversaw volunteers, hospitality events and hotel guarantees that would have been needed had the city won the games. “I’d like to do something around raising the city’s international profile, maybe attracting other international sports and meetings,” she says.

Several executives who were between jobs and served as advisers to the bid will pick up job searches again. Joe Ahern, 64, who was ousted last year as general manager of WBBM-TV/Channel 2, says he plans to stay in town but isn’t sure what his next gig will be.

Wally Hayward, 41, founder of sports-marketing firm Relay Worldwide, says, “I had a few things I was working on that I put on hold to join 2016. It will be something in the sports industry.”