International Focus Magazine Prototype Edition | Page 30

G7 recipient

A

s Director for the Office of Business Opportunity for the City of Houston, Carlecia D. Wright leads a
City Department that ensures diverse businesses have fair
access to and active participation in Houston’s procurement program. In this mayoral-appointed role since April
2011, Carlecia has implemented a proven three-pronged
approach – transparency, efficiency and innovation – to
provide a seamless, easy- to-navigate operation that supports the City’s procurement process, along with the
development of business development programs for small
businesses that strengthens them structurally, operationally,
financially and competitively.
Under Carlecia’s focused and strategic direction, the City
of Houston’s highly ranked program has awarded over
25,000 contracts totaling $2 billion dollars to diverse
businesses, and has become a model for cities around the
country. Among other historic and innovative firsts, she
garnered unanimous City Council approval to revise contract and procurement policy, and created Hire Houston
First, the largest local procurement preference program
in Texas and launched TweetMyJobs Houston, an online
platform that has connected more than 20,000 individuals
to 100,000-plus jobs.

Carlecia Wright
........................

OUTSTANDING
ADVOCATE
AWARD

30 iF Magazine | June 2016

A 16-year veteran of public service leadership, Carlecia’s
commitment to economic and community development
excellence is evidenced in the long-term impact she’s also
made beyond Houston’s borders. Starting her service, after
college as an Americorps NCCC Team Leader in San
Diego, California where she worked on service projects
in Education, Environment and Community Development throughout the Western Region of the United
States. Early in her career, Carlecia was instrumental in
the transformation of the Brooklyn landscape by gathering support to change land-use and zoning regulations
from community and business stakeholders, along with
the approval of five independent governing bodies. During her tenure with the City of New York’s Small Business Services and Housing Preservation and Development
departments, she worked closely with executive leadership in both departments on organizational priorities,
strategy, change management and key policy initiatives;
in 2006 she received the Frederick O’Reilly Hayes Prize,
which honors aspiring and emerging leaders in New
York City government, because of her role in converting
several failed properties that were city owned into viable
tenant owned properties; and for her role in identifying
city budget savings that turned a $14 million deficit into
an $8 million gain for New York City.