Will Evans, Renetta McCann and Bill Osborn received the 2024 Northwestern Alumni Medal. By Daniel P. Smith
The 2024 Northwestern Alumni Medalists will receive the Northwestern Alumni Association’s most prestigious award for exceptional achievement in their careers and service to Northwestern during Homecoming and Reunion Weekend.
Engineering Success in Business
When Will Evans arrived at Northwestern in fall 1973, he entered unfamiliar territory.
A first-generation college student from Chicago, Evans had never set foot on the Evanston campus and soon began to experience the University’s rigorous academics.
“I had no road map,” Evans says of his 18-year-old self. “I began traveling down this road of going to college, and Northwestern has helped me year after year.”
The University put him on the path to success, providing direction and spurring a decorated career in business. He had a 40-year career with Peoples Gas and its sister company, North Shore Gas, including a six-year run as president of both natural gas utilities.
Evans decided to major in electrical engineering at Northwestern to capitalize on his aptitude for working with electronics. Early on, though, he lacked the requisite scholarly focus. Evans recalls a professor calling out his half-hearted effort, which pushed him to work harder.
“I had everything I needed in me to succeed,” he says. Evans rededicated himself to his studies, often retreating to a cozy spot on the second floor of the Black House on Sheridan Road for solitude. He found encouraging mentors such as Milton Wiggins, associate dean of African American Student Affairs, and Evans’ confidence soared as he took on leadership roles within campus groups, including For Members Only and the National Society of Black Engineers.
Upon graduation he entered the Kellogg School of Management’s MBA evening program and began his career at Peoples Gas, where he had interned as an undergraduate.
At Peoples Gas, Evans combined the fundamentals of problem-solving that he learned at the McCormick School of Engineering with the business acumen he acquired from his studies at Kellogg to ascend the company’s ranks. He became president of Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas in 2008 and steered the monumental effort to modernize Illinois’ natural gas infrastructure with the passage of the Natural Gas Consumer, Safety and Reliability Act in 2013.
Over the past decade, Evans has continued to lead, serving on corporate, civic and nonprofit boards for organizations such as Chicago Commons, which provides educational opportunities for adults, supports early childhood education and cares for senior citizens. He also completed a three-year stint as chairman and CEO of the Illinois Tollway.
Along the way, Evans has kept close ties with his alma mater. He has co-chaired multiple Reunion committees, has given talks on campus and served as president of the Northwestern University Black Alumni Association (NUBAA) from 2018 to 2020.
Now Evans is focused on endowing the curator for the Black experience, a position at Northwestern University Libraries currently held by Charla Wilson, to preserve the stories of Northwestern’s Black alumni.
“There are Northwestern Black alumni who have had such a profound effect on our society, and University Archives can be a place where those stories can be kept and secured and protected for all of time,” Evans says.
“My time is my volunteerism, and my giving is my treasure,” he notes. “It’s the chance to connect to this family of friends but also to give back to this University that has given me so many gifts.”
Driving Industry and Organizational Change
Renetta McCann divides her four-decade career in advertising into three distinct stages.
First came learning her craft in the media department at Leo Burnett, the renowned U.S. advertising agency, beginning in 1978. There McCann developed her skills as a daily practitioner in media planning and buying.
Later McCann emerged as an industry leader, including a nearly three-year run as CEO of Starcom MediaVest Group, a Leo Burnett spinoff. In 2006 Forbes called McCann one of the world’s most powerful women, a nod to her role in driving industry change and Starcom’s growth.
Today McCann enjoys her career’s third phase: a strategist who operates at the intersection of organizations and people as the chief inclusion experience officer for Publicis Groupe, one of the world’s premier advertising firms.
“There’s something magical about advertising, just being steeped in an atmosphere of creativity,” she says.
Notably, advertising wasn’t McCann’s original plan.
The Chicagoan arrived at Northwestern as a political science major with visions of a legal career. Along the way she became fascinated by the art of persuasion, inspired by professors such as David Zarefsky ’71. She shifted her professional sights to public relations and her academic home to the School of Communication. After attending a campus presentation by Leo Burnett staffers, she became hooked on advertising.
“Some people will say, ‘I always wanted to be in advertising,’ ” McCann says. “I don’t have that. What I have is a deep interest in persuasion.”
In advertising, McCann found her path to influence. She crafted innovative strategies to stretch the marketing budgets of mid-tier clients, propelled the practice of business-to-business advertising and contributed to the industry’s rapid transformation by advocating for greater diversity in its ranks and championing different media vehicles to connect with the public.
In 2009 McCann paused her ascendant rise and returned to Northwestern to earn a master’s degree in learning and organizational change from the School of Education and Social Policy (SESP).
“I wanted to know more about the demands around how to lead and what it means to drive organizational change in a changing firm and industry,” she says. McCann’s graduate school experience underscored what she considers a paramount leadership skill: the ability to ask the right questions.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t try to learn something new,” says McCann, who in 2023 was inducted into the American Advertising Federation’s Advertising Hall of Fame, the industry’s highest honor. “I give a lot of credit to Northwestern for reinvigorating that love of learning.”
McCann’s devotion to Northwestern shines in various ways, including as a member of the Northwestern Alumni Association’s Board of Directors from 2018 to 2020. She is an adjunct lecturer in SESP’s learning and organizational change master’s degree program, co-teaching courses on organizational design as well as diversity, equity, inclusion and justice.
“I love being associated with a learning community,” McCann says of Northwestern. “Learning is a superpower.”
Accelerating Global Financial Growth
Bill Osborn understands firsthand the power of Northwestern.
After attending a military school for young men and moving to Evanston from rural Culver, Ind., where he grew up playing basketball and working on a farm, Osborn discovered new perspectives and social dynamics. His worldview expanded as he studied history and comparative politics as a political science major. His writing skills improved. And amid the uncertainties of the Vietnam War and the military draft, he developed life-enriching connections with his classmates.
“Making friends and growing as a person was very important to me,” recalls Osborn, the son of former Northwestern basketball player Robert Osborn ’41 and Dorothy Anderson Osborn ’41. “Sometimes I wish I could be a student all over again.”
With gratitude and a willingness to serve, Osborn has worked to ensure his alma mater’s vitality for nearly 30 years as a member and chair of the University’s Board of Trustees and a devoted supporter of Northwestern’s evolution.
“There’s always room for improvement … and the way the world works in competitive terms, if you don’t get better, others will, and you’ll suffer,” he says.
Osborn knows that from his own life. After serving on active duty in the U.S. Army Ranger National Guard, Osborn joined Chicago-based Northern Trust in 1970. Bolstered by an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, he ascended to leadership positions in the bank’s personal financial services and commercial banking business units. In 1993 he was named president and chief operating officer. Two years later he became chairman and CEO, steering advancements in asset servicing and asset management and pushing Northern Trust to become a global financial powerhouse.
In 1996 Osborn brought his business acumen and leadership skills to Northwestern’s Board of Trustees. “I was ready to give back,” he says.
Osborn played a pivotal role in numerous transformative changes at the University, including the recruitment of Morton Schapiro ’23 H as Northwestern’s 16th president and chairing the Board during We Will. The Campaign for Northwestern. The fundraising initiative raised over $6 billion, with a far-reaching impact, including significantly increasing financial aid for undergraduate students, attracting and retaining top faculty through the creation of endowed professorships, advancing and expanding the research enterprise, and supporting the construction of new facilities.
Gifts from Osborn and his wife, Cathy McCurdy Osborn ’72, have propelled advancements at Kellogg, the Feinberg School of Medicine, the Bienen School of Music, Northwestern Athletics and many more schools and programs.
After Osborn stepped down as Northwestern Board chair in 2017, trustees established the Bill and Cathy Osborn Professorships to honor the couple’s commitment to the University. The endowed positions focus on areas the Osborns want to emphasize: artificial intelligence and diversity and inclusion.
Now a life trustee, Osborn continues to trumpet Northwestern’s mission and merits, calling it a special place that champions interdisciplinary work, ambitious thinking, creative problem-solving and personal growth.
“Northwestern changes people’s lives,” he says. “I am involved on the Board and with different parts of Northwestern because I want to help make the University better.”
Daniel P. Smith is a Chicago-based freelance writer.
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