Key leaders on Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson's team ready to hit ground running

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Two people who will help shape and lead Chicago Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson's administration spoke publicly Friday.

State Senator Cristina Pacione-Zayas, and Rich Guidice, who just retired as Executive Director at OEMC, are now preparing for their new roles at City Hall.

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Johnson has tapped them for key leadership positions: Guidice as Chief of Staff and Pacione Zayas as the deputy chief. Guidice expects to hit the ground running.

"You take 33 and a half years of experience, you know, I know who to talk to and who the right players are to speak to to get the job done," Guidice said.

Guidice bring years of operational and security experience managing major events like Lollapalooza and the Chicago Marathon. His final days at OEMC were spent helping devise the city's plan to prevent a repeat of last weekend's chaos downtown.

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"So there's going to be infrastructure assets on site today from official police personnel on site," he said. "Certainly a lot of communications with all the downtown entities."

Pacione-Zayas and Guidice have worked together before. In 2017, both were part of the Chicago effort to get supplies to hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico.

"We're both Chicago kids at heart," Pacione-Zayas said. "We love Chicago, we've grown up in Chicago. My background is education, community organizing, of course, policy now being in the Senate. So I think it's going to be a great combination to complement the mayor elect's skills as well."

Pacione-Zayas figures to play a key role in selecting people for the new school board and CPS leadership.

Guidice is promising the new administration will be collaborative and more.

"Accountability is a big word with me," Guidice said. "And I think that we're going to dive in and hold ourselves accountable, but also have others be accountable, to make us a successful organization."

What's not clear at this point is how many other members of the Lightfoot administration may stay on or if Johnson plans to clean house. Guidice said there are a lot of conversations that still have to take place as they work to hire the team that will lead the city for the next four years.