Jose M. Muñoz is a social impact strategist with over 20 years of executive management, government affairs and public relations experience. He has designed and led social impact initiatives on health, education, housing, immigration, civic engagement and violence prevention.

Currently, Jose is the Executive Director of La Casa Norte (LCN), one of Chicago’s largest providers of services to youth and families experiencing homelessness and housing instability. Jose joined LCN in 2020, about a month before the COVID-19 global pandemic devastated our city. In his first year as Executive Director of LCN, José led the organization through one of the toughest years in its history and more than tripled the organization’s impact, which has grown from serving 5,000 individuals in 2019 to over 24,000 in 2021. Today, Jose and his team continue to work to find innovative solutions to expand housing and education opportunities for youth and families and create healthier communities across Chicago. 

Previously, Jose served in the Illinois Governor’s Office as Chief Marketing Officer, where he led the statewide rollout of the health insurance marketplace public education campaign. The initiative helped over a million individuals gain health insurance coverage and was one of the most successful health insurance marketplace rollouts in the country. Jose’s work was recognized nationally for engaging “hard to reach” groups (ethnic minorities, millennials, etc.,) and as a result, was invited to the White House to share best practices with marketplace officials from across the country. Jose also served as Deputy Commissioner for the City of Chicago’s Department of Public Health (CDPH). While at CDPH, Jose led the development and implementation of Chicago’s first citywide comprehensive public health agenda & strategic plan known as Healthy Chicago, with the vision of making Chicago the healthiest city in the nation. Healthy Chicago tackles issues such as violence, HIV/STI/AIDS, tobacco usage, breast cancer and other health disparities. The plan has engaged all city departments, sister agencies and partners in every sector to address the root causes of health disparities and is now in its second iteration (Healthy Chicago 2.0). He also devoted over 10 years of his career to advocating and developing programs for persons with disabilities.

Jose is a University of Chicago Civic Leadership Academy Fellow, a U.S. Mentor with the European Professional Fellows Network and has been recognized as one of Negocios Now Who’s Who in Hispanic Business Chicago. The son of Mexican immigrants and a Chicago native, Jose was the first in his family to obtain a degree from an institution of higher learning. He graduated summa cum laude, with a 4.0 GPA, from Chicago State University’s College of Business with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. Jose was raised in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood, currently lives with his family in the Gage Park community and works in Humboldt Park.