PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Providence Mayor-elect David Morales filled two of the most important jobs at City Hall in Providence, R.I., on Monday, choosing a longtime public interest lawyer to run his office and a city finance veteran to manage the money.
Jennifer Wood will be chief of staff. She has directed the Rhode Island Center for Justice since 2017, a nonprofit legal group that represents tenants fighting eviction, workers and immigrant families.
Wood has spent more than three decades in law and government. Before the nonprofit, she put in nine years as chief of staff and top lawyer at the state education department, and eight years in the same pair of roles for former Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Roberts.
Krystle Lindberg will become chief financial officer. She is already inside City Hall as deputy finance director, a post she has held since 2020, and joined the finance department in 2015. She replaces Lawrence Mancini, who is retiring.
In announcing the picks, Morales said he chose Wood because her career has been built around the working families his campaign promised to help, and he framed his administration around making the city affordable and safe for them.
Wood studied at Brown University. Her current nonprofit has also taken part in lawsuits challenging federal policies, working with the Lawyers’ Committee for Rhode Island. Lindberg, by moving up from the deputy job, gives the incoming mayor a finance chief who already knows the city budget from the inside.
The two hires come as the transition team continues to build out the administration, after earlier announcements of transition co-chairs and committee members.
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