Founding Board Director & Community Developer

Jon is a Managing Partner at Third City Properties and has been investing in and managing real estate since 2005. Jon is an Illinois Licensed Real Estate Broker, founder of the Northwest Side Building Coalition (NSBC), member of the Neighborhood Building Owner Alliance (NBOA) Board and an active member of the Rogers Park Builders Group and Edgewater Uptown Builders Association.

Jon currently manages assets in Chicago, Houston, and Amsterdam and is focused on identifying high value opportunities in the North and West Sides of Chicago. He takes a pro-active, hands-on approach to managing assets to ensure optimal performance of each asset.

Jon is also the co-owner of Third City Cafe and Third City Studio located in the North Austin Arts District at North Ave and Central in the Austin Community.

Jon brings 20 years of consulting experience leading projects across North America, Europe, and the Middle East for PricewaterhouseCoopers and JPMorganChase to help improve the operations of Fortune 500 companies. The common thread throughout his career has been to form lasting relationships and bring people from diverse backgrounds and skillsets to work towards a common goal, and having some fun along the way.

Emily is the Director of Housing and Community Development at the Metropolitan Planning Council, working to ensure fair and equitable housing policies for all Chicagoans.

Beginning her career as a street outreach worker in Boston, her early perspectives were shaped by firsthand witness to how social, racial, and economic disparities affect safe housing and basic quality of life. She has since spent over a decade conducting research, analysis, advocacy and direct organization to secure affordable and equitable housing rights.

Third City’s newest member, her interest in the arts, fine craft and community education led her to join the Studio’s board.

Board Director

Simi is a Managing Partner of Third City Properties and is responsible for business administration and infrastructure.

A business and HR professional with strategy and execution experience in the US, Europe, India and the Middle East, Simi has held Chief of Staff, business administration and HR roles for multiple organizations. She has extensive knowledge of business operations management, service quality and global human resources, and has experience working in financial services, consulting, shared services, higher education and technology.

Simi brings a unique and integrated viewpoint to the design and implementation of organizational transformation and strategic initiatives. She is passionate about technology, data and analytics and taking a progressive approach to talent management.

Simi also serves on the Board of the Lawyers for the Creative Arts and is a certified Global Professional in HR (GPHR).

William Baker III is a multidisciplinary artist working in textiles, sound, and video. He is a published photographer & documentarian, fashion designer, and more recently a visual artist working in tufting, as well as the Program Manager at the Austin African American Business Networking Association.

Hailey is a multimedia artist, florist, and educator. A previously exhibiting artist with Third City Studio and a CPS art teacher, she is a cultivator with a deep appreciation for process, care, and accessibility in art-making. Her work with flowers is as a material language, through which she describes her life, creative pursuits, and professional practices in terms of impermanence, labor, and attentiveness.

Caleb Guider is a Chicago-based photographer born and raised in East Garfield Park and currently living in Austin. A graduate in film at Lawrence University with minors in studio art and gender studies, his work is rooted in lived experience as a Black artist navigating identity, gender, and how personal and collective transformation can emerge through limitation, instability, and change.

Dearra Williams is a Chicago-based marketing strategist and community builder rooted in the city’s West Side. She serves as Community and Operations Manager at Austin Coming Together, and her work sits at the intersection of narrative strategy, cultural equity, and collective impact, shaped by her love of Afrofuturism, Black literary traditions, and the belief that rest and leisure are forms of justice.

She joined the studio to amplify Black voices, art, and narratives in ways that build dignity, economic power, and political visibility, and to help close the gap in representation across Chicago’s artist workforce.

Lizzie Jefferson is an instructor and small business founder in mindfulness, emotional well-being, and community care, who has worked with schools and community spaces across Chicago.

Lizzie joined Third City Studio to help create a space where artists are supported not only in their personal and professional practice, but to cultivate a space of wellness and personal empowerment to complement the studio’s mission.