- Details
- By Tribal Business News Staff
- Economic Development
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — The Center for Indian Country Development at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis has appointed 12 new members to its leadership council.
The CICD aims to address structural barriers to tribes’ economic sustainability and stability. The new members of the advisory council, whose three-year terms started effective April 1, represent tribal nations, national organizations, and tribal policy, research, and finance practitioners.
Appointees to the council will offer feedback to the CICD about its “applied research, data analysis, and policy development agenda by helping to uncover gaps in the knowledge base and by identifying and explaining the systemic impediments to economic opportunity and inclusive growth in tribal communities,” according to a statement.
“Indian Country is a vital part of our national economy, and it’s important that we address the barriers that inhibit tribal nations’ full economic participation,” CICD Director Casey Lozar (Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes) said in a statement. “We are focused on providing valuable information to tribal governments that respects their inherent self-governance and advances tribal economic prosperity goals.”
The members of the CICD Leadership Council are:
- Fatima Abbas, director of policy and legislative counsel at the National Congress of American Indians
- Melanie Benjamin, chief executive of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe
- Jackson Brossy, executive director of the Native CDFI Network
- Dawson Her Many Horses, head of Native American banking at Wells Fargo
- Townsend Hyatt, partner at the law firm Orrick
- Chris James, president and CEO of the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development
- Lynn Malerba, chief of the Mohegan Tribe
- Arlan Melendez, chairman of Reno-Sparks Indian Colony
- Robert Miller, professor in the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University, the Willard H. Pedrick Distinguished Research Scholar and faculty director of the Rosette LLP American Indian Economic Development Program, and Chief Justice for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe Court of Appeals
- Donald Ragona, director of development and house counsel of the Native American Rights Fund
- Leah Sixkiller, of counsel at Hogen Adams PLLC
- Desi Small-Rodriguez, assistant professor at the UCLA Department of Sociology and American Indian Studies and director of Data Warriors Lab
