Riverside has a new finance director in Mary Emmanuel, the former director of finance for the Chicago Public Library who has more than 17 years of experience.
Village Manager Jessica Frances said Emmanuel joined the village on Sept. 16. The village’s search began in July following advance notice from former Finance Director Yvette Zavala, whose last day with Riverside was Aug. 13, Frances said.
Emmanuel’s annual salary is $180,000, Frances said. Her qualifications include more than 10 years of holding senior finance and accounting positions within several departments in Chicago’s city government.
Frances said Emmanuel worked most recently as the chief financial officer for the city’s department of public health, where she worked for about five years, according to her LinkedIn.
Before that, Emmanuel spent nearly four years as the finance director of the Chicago Public Library and two years as a supervisor of accounting for the city’s finance department and the comptroller’s office. Her work history in accounting and finance dates back to 2009, according to her LinkedIn.
Emmanuel earned her bachelor’s degree from Mahatma Gandhi University as well as two master’s degrees, one in economics from Madras University and one in accounting from DePaul University, Frances said.
Emmanuel declined an interview request from the Landmark.
Frances said Emmanuel made a strong impression during the hiring process, including an interview and an assessment of her abilities.
“There was a presentation, and she did a fabulous job with the presentation, showing that she could explain nuanced, related material,” Frances said. “[We were] making sure that she was able to explain those more complicated issues, boil them down to their essence and present it to a group that may not be familiar.”
Emmanuel “hit the ground running” as Riverside was beginning its budgeting process for calendar year 2027, Frances said.
“She has prepared the items related to the tax levy hearing, the budget hearing. All the information that myself and other staff members have worked on compiling, she is now taking that and making the final presentations to the board,” Frances said. “There has been no downtime for her.”
In the monthlong interim period between Zavala’s departure and Emmanuel’s first day, Frances said she was “doing double duty” to pull together much of the village’s financial forecast information, with help from Emily Stenzel, who is both the village clerk and the special assistant to finance and administration, as well as management analyst Ian Splitt and accountant Hannah Decosola.
“They were an incredible help and resource. We could have brought somebody in through a temp service, but by the time they would have started to learn the things, Mary would have been there,” Frances said. “It’s a huge time investment.”
While Frances said Emmanuel has been working through training modules as a new department head and otherwise settling in, she said there will be a learning curve as there often is when someone begins a new job.
“The first year for anyone in a new role is what I like to refer to as, they feel like they’re drinking out of a firehose,” Frances said. “There’s a lot of information, and they’re trying to process it all, take notes, learn the community and their team members and all the policies. It is a lot in the first year.”
