By Carolyn Bick
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
Jen Chan
Jen Chan freely admits that her temporary post as Seattle’s director of city operations for the incoming Wilson administration is a bit of a new one for her.
Chan—who currently serves as the Seattle Housing Authority (SHA)’s deputy executive director—said that she’s “usually the person behind the scenes,” and that the director position isn’t a role she would naturally pursue.
“When I look at all the great mentors and coaches that I’ve had throughout my career, I really have always thought, ‘Okay, I know what I bring to the table, but I am going to follow this other, more well-established leader and visionary,’” Chan said. “And now that I’m older in my career, I look around and I’m like, ‘Okay, I think that is me.’ … I still think of myself as young [in my career], but nope—I have a lot of years underneath.”
Incoming mayor-elect Katie Wilson tapped Chan to lead city operations as part of her 60-person transition team. Chan’s first day on the job will be Jan. 5, where she will serve in the new Wilson administration for six months, before returning to SHA.
Born in Hong Kong, Chan immigrated to the United States. She attended Boston’s Tufts University for her undergraduate work, and moved to Washington to attend the University of Washington to pursue a master’s degree. Her first job was as a social worker in Canada.
Chan said that she got into social work, because she and her parents are immigrants.
“We were poor. My father was a hair stylist, my mother was a waitress, and they worked 14-hour days. I had two other siblings,” Chan said. “They knew very little English, and while we had some family, it’s not like we landed in the community. I saw firsthand how important community was and how it helps support you, and some of the advantages and disadvantages that populations have—through no intent, but just in terms of circumstances that they have inherited.”
Chan decided to move back to Washington, and applied for a job as a research intern with the Seattle Police Department. It was her first experience in city government.
“It wasn’t what I thought I was going to do, but it was really compelling,” Chan remembered. “It was during the Clinton administration, where there was a big push on community-oriented policing, and how do we engage with the community.”
After that, she held a number of positions around the city, including with Finance and Administrative Services and within the mayor’s office, and served on a couple different mayoral transition teams, including former Mayor Jenny Durkan’s. Before joining SHA, Chan was chief of staff for Seattle City Light.
In her role within Wilson’s incoming administration, Chan sees herself harnessing all her professional experiences to date, and applying it to the role. Though her post is only temporary, she has three goals she wants to accomplish.
First, she said, she wants to re-establish trust and relationships with staff throughout Seattle’s different departments, given that this will be a new administration.
“I am a firm believer that we need city departments to help run our city. It’s not going to happen in a vacuum, just within the mayor’s office” Chan said. “I think culture, relationships, trust, making sure that there is appropriate authority combined with accountability is something that is just necessary to make city government run.”
Chan also wants to ensure that the new administration is aligned with departments, their leaders, and their culture, in order to avoid unnecessary delays or detours.
“We can all develop a list of different priorities that we want to push forward, but if you don’t have the culture and the leadership, I don’t think that is going to be super-successful,” she explained. “There’s too much work to be done for us to not really be intentional and proactive on that.”
Lastly, because her position is only temporary, Chan wants to bring in a team of professionals and emerging leaders with a combination of experience in different issue areas, but—perhaps more importantly—high emotional intelligence.
While department heads and leadership will be running the departments, she said, the mayor’s office will still be working in partnership with them, so there needs to be “transparency and alignment in terms of what their department priorities are, what are key issues, risks, what are things that we need to be paying attention to in terms of department culture, senior management, what voices or people are represented when they’re making some critical decisions.”
“And then,” she continued, “alignment with the new mayor’s policy and operational priorities—which I think that’s all we want to do: help support the new administration being successful.”
While Chan won’t be in charge of choosing her replacement, she will consult with the mayor’s office on who will take her place.
Chan sees herself as a bridge for both successful governance and for future generations of leaders. But, she emphasized, “it’s not about me—I don’t want it to be about me.”
“As an Asian female, I think I have been fortunate to be able to be in different progressive leadership roles, but I don’t take that lightly. It’s not because I’m smarter than anyone,” Chan said. “I can be a bridge, in terms of bringing and lifting up other younger leaders who … are solid people, thoughtful, caring—really guided by the same interests as the mayor-elect and me, in terms of how we serve. That is a gift that I couldn’t walk away from, in terms of bringing and leveraging that opportunity with my City background and relationships.”