Chancellor Juan Salgado has focused his career on improving education and economic opportunities for residents in low-income communities. As Chancellor of City Colleges of Chicago, he oversees Chicago's community college system, serving more than 73,000 students across seven colleges, more than three-quarters of whom are Black or Latine students.

Under his leadership, City Colleges of Chicago has achieved a post-pandemic enrollment recovery surpassing state and national averages, increased four-year student outcomes to the highest on record, launched an unprecedented systems-level partnership with the Chicago Public Schools, serves as a go to workforce partner across the region and state, has expanded relationships with four-year universities, seen exponential growth of a nationally-recognized engineering program, eliminated a legacy structural deficit, and re-energized fundraising contributing to historic investments in student supports, among other accomplishments.

From 2001 to 2017, he served as CEO of Instituto del Progreso Latino, where he worked to empower residents of Chicago's Southwest Side through education, citizenship, and skill-building programs that led to sustainable employment and economic stability.

Chancellor Salgado is a community college graduate himself, earning an associate degree from Moraine Valley Community College, prior to earning a Bachelor's degree from Illinois Wesleyan University, and a Master's degree in Urban Planning from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with honorary degrees from DePaul University and University of Illinois at Chicago. Chancellor Salgado has been nationally recognized for his work, including as a 2015 MacArthur Fellow. Among his civic commitments, he serves as board chair of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, a board member of the Obama Foundation and a Class C Director for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.