Marlene Allen

Marlene is an exceptional, intuitive, forward-thinking business woman. She is a trailblazer with over 25 years of experience leading successful, cross-functional teams and organizations. 

For over two decades, Marlene has held key positions in human resources and educational leadership for a diverse group of companies and organizations. Her experience also includes executive management training and development, organizational management, adult learning theory, and human resources policies and procedures.

Marlene is highly skilled in the following areas: Consulting, Project Management, Business Process Documentation and Re-engineering, Change Management, Strategic Planning, Public Speaking, and People Management. She has provided valuable organizational leadership, education, documentation management, communication and technology training, guidance and support across diverse platforms.

Most recently, she served as Chief Deputy Clerk for the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County, which represents the second-largest integrated court system in the nation, with upward of 1,800 management, union, and non-union employees and an operating budget of over $100M.  In this role, she provided executive leadership, worked in concert with key Senior and Executive level employees to ensure compliance with human resources policies, procedures, and best practices. She transformed the hiring of new employees by successfully developing and implementing end-to-end automation of the recruiting process, from job postings through onboarding.

Prior to this role, Marlene served for 11 years as Executive Director of a nonprofit social services agency where she provided leadership critical to its mission of social and racial justice for children and families. As a consequence of her leadership, the organization launched a licensed, award-winning childcare center. Marlene led the center to receive the honored distinction of an Illinois Quality Silver Rating for consistently demonstrating exceptional practices in the areas of inclusion; linguistic and culturally appropriate practices; family and community engagement and infant/toddler services.

Marlene’s leadership has been hailed as transformational.  Her clients describe her as practical, intuitive, resourceful, inspiring, authentic, creative, and quick to understand organizational challenges and opportunities. Marlene earned a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Master of Arts in Human Resources Management from DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois.  She also earned a Doctorate in Christian Education from Gospel Ministry Outreach Theological Institute in Houston, Texas.