A group of prominent Chicagoans interested in promoting a strong new chess program in the city's schools announced itself recently in a letter addressed to Mayor Rahm Emanuel; Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the CEO of the Chicago school system; and David Vitale, the president of the Board of Education.  The group, a new ICA committee called the Chicago Schools Advisory Board, said, “Based on our collective experience in financing and fundraising, we believe we are well positioned to achieve and surpass the anticipated capital needs of an ambitious new program for Chicago.”

The new Board said it did not favor any particular initiative as long as the new program adhered to key principles, including that it be available to students regardless of their ability to pay; that it be inclusive, integrating a wide range of organizations and individuals able to bring value to the program; that it aim to build competitive excellence; that it seek to ensure integrity by choosing providers through a “transparent, open-architecture, vendor-agnostic platform” and that it be overseen by an independent central administrative and planning office.

For the full text of the letter and profiles of the new Advisory Board, see below.

Chicago's scholastic chess program lags far behind those in other cities. Approximately 1500 Chicago students participate, in comparison to 23,000 in New York.  With a few exceptions, CPS teams are virtually absent from major state and national competitions.  

ICA has been urging the city to revamp its chess program since 2010 and has offered to run a new program for free.  Its detailed proposal of June 2011 was endorsed by the state's Grandmasters and International Masters, the state's two chess coaches' associations, many private chess providers, and a host of others prominent in Illinois chess. A number of those supporting a new program wrote letters to Mayor Emanuel and other city officials last year.  (Click here)

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Text of letter dated April 25, 2013:

April 25, 2013

Hon. Rahm Emanuel, Mayor, City of Chicago
Barbara Byrd-Bennett, CEO, Chicago Public Schools
David Vitale, President, Chicago Board of Education

We are members of the Chicago Schools Advisory Board of the Illinois Chess Association, set up recently to raise funds to support a new chess program for Chicago’s schools. We have backgrounds in law, finance, investment management, philanthropy, entrepreneurship, venture capital, accounting, journalism and public relations. We also share a passion for chess and understand the developmental benefits it offers young participants. Most of us are active chess players, some quite accomplished, and many of us have competitive chess-playing children.

In our meetings, we have reviewed a proposed budget, discussed benchmarks and program activation dates and milestones, discussed fundraising strategies, and put together a list of philanthropically-minded individuals, corporations and foundations we believe are likely to support the new initiative. Based on our collective experience in financing and fundraising, we believe we are well positioned to achieve and surpass the anticipated capital needs of an ambitious new program for Chicago.

The program we are prepared to support would do the following:

1. Create opportunities to learn, play and compete, both during and after the school day, regardless of students’ ability to pay—at the lowest possible cost to schools;

2. Create and empower an independent central administrative and planning office to provide information, training and support; to give principals the resources necessary to make informed decisions and build strong programs; and to establish best practices for instruction, club management, and measurement of student progress;

3. Enable and integrate the participation of national, state and local chess organizations and provider coaches including the state’s many titled players, professional instructors, teachers, parents, volunteers, and high school and college players;

4. Build competitive excellence through expansion of league and tournament play and instruction within clubs at multiple skill levels;

5. Facilitate selection of private service providers through a transparent, open-architecture, vendor-agnostic platform—thus affirming the integrity of the program to supporters.

These core program values are not only intuitive but represent feedback we have received from prospective and likely donors.

While this finance and advisory board was initially brought together by the ICA, we share a strong conviction that chess can have an enormous positive impact on developing young minds. Consequently, this board is not partisan or biased towards working on any particular chess initiative or with any particular group of participants as long as the effort embodies the program goals listed above and ultimately brings the game of chess to a broader scholastic audience.

We would be pleased to meet with you to see whether we can move together to build what could become a national model.

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Chicago Schools Advisory Board Profiles:

Jeff Joseph (co-chair) is managing partner at Prescient Capital Partners, a boutique venture capital, merchant banking and early-stage advisory firm. He is an active investor, advisor and mentor to the Chicago area entrepreneurial community. Jeff has an extensive prior background in wealth management and investment advice as former managing director of a $15 billion investment firm.  He and his 9 year-old son both play and compete, and Jeff runs the club at his son’s school, Saint Athanasius in Evanston. 

Kris (Krishnan) Harihara is a Vice President and financial advisor at UBS, where he helps high net-worth individuals with asset management, financial planning and personal banking.  Earlier in his career, he was the CFO of a distribution company.  Kris has an undergraduate engineering degree from Banaras, India and received his MBA in finance at the University of Chicago.  He is married to Jennifer Gaw, a fellow alum from the business school. They have a 16-year-old daughter who is a sophomore at Walter Payton High School and the top player on the Payton chess team.  Kris is an avid chess enthusiast and competes in many local tournaments.  He hopes to, one day, win a game or two.  He is currently serving as a voluntary coach for the newly formed Walter Payton High School chess team. 

Matthias Pfau was born in Essen, Germany, in 1964. He learned the game at a young age from his mother, who was a strong player. Matthias has been playing chess competitively on and off since he was five, with tournament and league experience in Germany, Hungary, Greece, UK and the US. A former Mathematics Professor, he is now working for Citadel Investment Group as a risk manager for commodity trading.  Work, children and other interests such as photography and sailing limit his active chess play to a few games a year, mostly in the Chicago Industrial Chess League.  He continues to maintain a 2100+ rating with FIDE and USCF.

Leslie Toepfer is a CPA and public auditor with management experience, including as Vice President and controller for the Pritzker family for 13 years.  She helped run the Decatur Elementary School chess club when her son was there and helped start the Wildwood Elementary club.  Her son later played at Whitney Young and is now on the chess team at Northside College Prep High School. 

Advisor

Alice DuBose: During her 25 years as a development professional, Alice has helped design, execute, and complete capital campaigns resulting in more than $950 million in gifts and pledges. She served in senior development positions at the University of Chicago, the U of C’s Booth School of Business, Children’s Memorial Hospital Foundation, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Zoological Society/Brookfield Zoo, Rice University, Boston College, Tulane University, and United Way. In 2006, she founded Philanthropy RX, a fundraising firm whose clients include U of C’s Booth and Laboratory Schools, Natural Resources Defense Council, Grant Park Music Festival, Chicago Humanities Festival, College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, UIC’s Walter Payton Center, Chicagoland Jewish High School, the Merit School of Music, Concordia University Chicago, Chicago Children’s Choir, North Park University, Columbia College Chicago, Chinese American Service League, Urban Gateways, and Project Exploration. Alice earned her BA from the University of Texas.