Jaime Guillen will lead the City’s Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity (CREO) Department. Since 2007, Guillen has worked with Jackson County Government. Beginning in 2020, Guillen was the County’s Chief Compliance Review Officer. Guillen is the first Latino Director at the City since 2010.

Guillen established an electronic Affirmative Action reporting process for the County, ensured the pool of vendors was not only diverse but equitable, assigned goals to projects while monitoring them to ensure participation achievement and enforced the County's prevailing wage ordinance. He expanded their department by more than doubling their workforce, increased project and contract monitoring through an expedited and streamlined process and assisted in the creation of the County’s MBE/WBE program which was enacted and adopted by the County Legislature.

"Jaime Guillen brings years of experience at Jackson County, deep roots to our community, professionalism, and a true desire to see the vision of the CREO department carried out. Every interaction we’ve had with Guillen has made it clear that he is the real deal and authentically cares about this work," Ralph Oropeza, Business Manager of the Greater KC Building and Construction Trades Council said. “This hire is a home run, not just for organized labor and the working-people of Kansas City, but also the residents who care about common sense things like fairness, making sure workers are properly compensated for their work, preventing discrimination, enforcing civil rights laws, and increasing inclusion and economic equity for our residents and businesses."

In his role, Guillen hopes to ensure everyone has an equal opportunity to contract with the City. He wants individuals and organizations to feel confident CREO will investigate and advocate for them. Guillen wants to ensure it becomes easier to do business with the city, to reduce barriers which may feel intimidating to small or minority organizations. To do this he plans to look at the City’s processes to make all processes more straightforward and accessible.

"I am very excited to join the Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity (CREO) Department. It is my goal to ensure our citizens can live in a City free of discrimination and that our small businesses are afforded fair and equitable contracting opportunities. I look forward to the challenges and opportunities this role will provide," Director Guillen said.