Our Team

21CP Solutions is the preeminent team of forward-thinking leaders on public safety.

The multidisciplinary team of partners, advisors, and associates draws on deep experiences and diverse perspectives to collaborate with communities and campuses to drive meaningful, sustainable change in public safety.

Partners


  • Charles H. Ramsey was appointed Police Commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department on January 7, 2008, by Mayor Michael A. Nutter. He retired in January 2016 after serving eight years as Commissioner and leading the fourth largest police department in the nation with over 6,600 sworn members and 830 civilian members.

    Commissioner Ramsey has been at the forefront of developing innovative policing strategies and leading organizational change for the past 35 years. He brings over fifty years of knowledge, experience, and service in advancing the law enforcement profession in three different major city police departments, beginning with Chicago, then Washington, DC, and Philadelphia. He is an internationally recognized practitioner and educator in his field and is a Past President of both the Police Executive Research Forum and the Major Cities Chiefs Association. He is the only law enforcement professional to have served as President of both prominent organizations at the same time and to receive the Leadership Award from 3 major law enforcement organizations; the FBI National Executive Institute, Police Executive Research Forum, and the Major Cities Chiefs Association. In December 2014, following several high-profile incidents involving police use of force, President Barack Obama chose Commissioner Ramsey to serve as co-chair of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. He is currently a Distinguished Policy Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law, an advisor to the U.S. Conference of Mayors and is a Founding Partner in the consulting firm 21st Century Policing Solutions, LLC.

    Commissioner Ramsey served as the chief of the Metropolitan Police Department, District of Columbia (MPDC), from April 21, 1998, to January 1, 2007. During his tenure he oversaw and participated in numerous high-profile investigations and events in Washington DC, including the 9/11Terrorist Attacks, 2001 Anthrax Attacks, 2002 DC Sniper Investigation, and the 2001 and 2005 Presidential Inaugurations.

    Commissioner Ramsey holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in criminal justice from Lewis University in Romeoville, Illinois. He is a graduate of the FBI National Academy, the FBI National Executive Institute and the Executive Leadership Program at the Naval Postgraduate School, Center for Homeland Defense and Security. In December 2015, the Philadelphia Police Department Training Academy Auditorium was named in his honor, and The United States Congress approved a U.S. Postage Stamp bearing his likeness.


  • Founding Partner Sean Smoot is a subject matter expert on policing and public safety and the Managing Partner of 21CP. Building on a 30+ year career in law and policing, he now consults internationally on issues related to Constitutional Policing, Public Employment Labor Law, Pension & Benefits Law, Section 1983 Civil Rights Litigation, Body Worn Cameras, Use of Force, Supervision, Officer Safety & Wellness, Recruiting, Retention, and Hiring. 

    Mr. Smoot was a police and public safety advisor to the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Teams and a Member of President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. He also was part of the Executive Session on Policing and Public Safety at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government from 2008 to 2014. He is a member of several national boards and committees, and regularly speaks at conferences, meetings, and forums on topics related to public safety, police-community relations, and law enforcement agency operations. He has appeared on CNN, C-SPAN, and several national news affiliates discussing critical issues in modern policing.

    Mr. Smoot’s career in law enforcement labor relations and legislative advocacy began in Illinois and he remains the Emeritus Director and Chief Counsel of the Police Benevolent & Protective Association of Illinois. He also is the Area 4 Vice-President of the National Association of Police Organizations (“NAPO”), a national law enforcement advocacy group representing over 250,000 police officers across the United States. Other noteworthy service in his native state includes his 2015 appointment to the Illinois Commission on Police Professionalism by then-Governor Bruce Rauner, and his current role on the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board (ILETSB). First appointed to ILETSB in 2020 by Governor J.B. Pritzker, he was elected Chairman of the Board in 2023. As ILETSB’s Chairman, he is responsible for the oversight and training of more than 35,000 sworn law enforcement officers and over 6,500 sworn correctional officers across the state. Mr. Smoot also spent 12 years as an elected alderman and ten years as the police commissioner in Leland Grove.

    Mr. Smoot holds a BS in Criminal Justice Sciences from Illinois State University and a JD from the Southern Illinois University School of Law, where he served as the Business Editor of the SIU Law Journal.


  • Founding Partner Roberto Villaseñor served with the Tucson Police Department for over 35 years, including six years as the chief of the department. He served in every division and bureau, including Patrol, Investigations, Internal Affairs, Bike Patrol, PIO, Hostage Negotiations, Community Policing, Administration, and Communications. As an assistant chief for 9 years, he commanded all four bureaus of the department and served as the union liaison involved in discipline grievances and labor negotiations. His career history and assignments have given him a thorough understanding of all facets of policing and police management.

    Villaseñor served on several state and national boards and committees, including the Arizona HIDTA (Chairman), the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police (President), the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) Executive Board, the FBI CJIS/UCR Working Group, and currently sits on the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Ethics and Integrity Advisory Panel. In 2014 Chief Villaseñor was appointed by President Obama to the President’s National Task Force on 21st Century Policing, and in 2015 was appointed by Arizona Governor Doug Ducey to the Arizona Criminal Justice Council.

    Chief Villaseñor has a BS from Park University and an MEd from Northern Arizona University. He attended the PERF Senior Management Institute for Police (SMIP), the University of California at Long Beach Leadership Development Series, the FBI National Academy, and the FBI National Executives Institute (NEI). Throughout his career, in addition to numerous commendations and letters of appreciation, he received the department’s Medal of Distinguished Service, three Medals of Merit, and was Officer of the Year for 1996. In 2015, the Tucson Branch of the NAACP presented him an award for “Pursuing Liberty in the Face of Injustice,” and the Tucson Hispanic Chamber named him as the 2015 Arizona Public Servant of the Year.


  • Ronald Davis was nominated by President Joseph Biden and confirmed by the United States Senate to serve as the 12th Director of the United States Marshals Service (USMS). As director of America's oldest federal law enforcement agency, Mr. Davis led a workforce of over 10,000 professionals, including over 5,500 operational and administrative employees and approximately 5,000 special deputies and court security officers, spanning over 500 domestic offices and four foreign field offices. Mr. Davis also gained valuable experience into judicial security including facility security, risk assessments, and executive protection, as well as fugitive apprehension, witness security, and prison operations.

    Mr. Davis previously served as the Director of the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office) from 2013 to 2017. It was during that tenure that President Barack Obama appointed him to serve as the executive director of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing.

    He also spent more than 28 years in local law enforcement, starting in 1985 with the Oakland, California, Police Department rising to the rank of captain. Then in 2005, Mr. Davis became the police chief for the City of East Palo Alto, California, and held that position for more than 8 years. As the police chief, Mr. Davis worked collaboratively with the community to improve public trust, enhance organizational accountability, and dramatically reduce crime and violence in a city once named the murder capital of the United States.

    Mr. Davis possesses a bachelor's degree from Southern Illinois University and has completed the Senior Executives in State and Local Government Program at Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, where he also served on the Executive Session on Police and Public Safety.


  • Kathleen O’Toole has held several executive positions in the public and private sectors and is widely recognized for her principled leadership and successful reform efforts in North America and Europe. As a law school student, Kathleen accepted a position as a patrol officer with the Boston Police Department and quickly rose through the ranks. She became chief of the Metropolitan District Commission Police in Boston, a lieutenant colonel overseeing special operations in the Massachusetts State Police, and the Massachusetts Secretary of Public Safety.  She has served as the Boston Police Commissioner and the Seattle Chief of Police. She also served as chief inspector of the Garda Síochána, the Irish national police service. Chief O’Toole was a member of the Independent Commission on Policing during the Northern Ireland Peace Process, the Commission on the Future of Policing in England and Wales and recently chaired the Commission on the Future of Policing in the Republic of Ireland. 

    Chief O’Toole’s public safety experience extends well beyond policing. When serving as Secretary of Public Safety in Massachusetts, she was responsible for twenty agencies, boards, and commissions, including the Massachusetts State Police, the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Fire Services, the Department of Correction, and the Registry of Motor Vehicles. She chaired the Boston Fire Department Review Commission and was a member of a four-member panel that developed the framework for reform of the Northern Ireland Prison Service. She has overseen and directed planning, operations, and recovery for hundreds of major events and natural disasters.

    As a practicing attorney, she has represented clients on civil matters and acted “of counsel” to a Boston law firm. She also served as a corporate security manager at Digital Equipment Corporation with global responsibility for executive protection, crisis management, and threats of violence in the workplace. In the academic arena, Chief O’Toole has conducted and published research in the areas of organization science, law, and criminal justice. She served as an adjunct faculty member at Northeastern University, the University of Ulster, and Seattle University.  She holds a BA from Boston College, a JD from the New England School of Law, and a PhD from the Business School of Trinity College Dublin.


  • Matthew Barge is a police practices and civil rights expert with 18 years of experience working with law enforcement agencies, city governments, and communities on public safety challenges. He currently serves as the Deputy Managing Partner of 21CP and leads work on outcome assessments and compliance reviews for the federal monitoring team overseeing the consent decree involving the Baltimore Police Department. From 2015 through 2019, he served as the federal court-appointed monitor overseeing a federal consent decree involving the Cleveland Division of Police. He has also been a member of the monitoring team in Seattle from 2013 through 2018 and from 2020 to the present. 

    In his work with 21CP Solutions, Mr. Barge has provided expertise and counsel to the California Department of Justice, New York Attorney General’s Office, and Minnesota Department of Human Rights on investigations and oversight of police practices. He has conducted voluntary, comprehensive assessments of police departments for numerous communities, including Aurora, Colorado; Raleigh, North Carolina; South Bend, Indiana; and Tacoma, Washington. He has also assisted universities and colleges, from Harvard University and Yale University to the University of Oregon and the University of Southern California, in addressing community safety issues.

    Mr. Barge has been a Senior Policing Fellow with the Policing Project at N.Y.U. School of Law since 2017.  In that capacity, he has served as a member of the design team on an initiative focused on re-imagining the delivery of public safety services; helped to design a tool to help police departments assess their performance and operations; and worked to implement a Neighborhood Police Initiative promoting community problem-solving approaches at the Chicago Police Department.

    A lawyer, Mr. Barge previously worked as a litigator specializing in complex, multi-district litigation at the law firms of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Quinn, Emanuel, Urquhart & Sullivan in New York City. He is a graduate of NYU School of Law and Georgetown University.


  • Nola M. Joyce is a nationally recognized policing expert. She also served as deputy commissioner for the Philadelphia Police Department and held executive positions in the Washington, D.C., and Chicago Police Departments. She spearheaded significant organizational change efforts in these demanding public safety agencies, demonstrating exceptional ability to drive transformation.

    Her achievements and recognition in policing and public safety are extensive and diverse. She served on several prestigious advisory boards, including the American Law Institute’s project, Principles of the Law: Policing, and the National Science Academy’s Panel on Modernizing the Nation’s Criminal Statistics. Her expertise is widely recognized, as evidenced by her role on the International Association of Police Chiefs (IACP) Research Advisory Committee, the Police Executive Research Forum’s (PERF) Research Council, and as a Senior Executive Fellow of the National Institute of Policing. She received the Gary P. Hayes Award from PERF and the Award of Research Excellence from IACP, further validating her significant contributions to the field.

    Ms. Joyce is driven by a deep passion for helping agencies reach new heights of performance and service. Her advanced degrees in sociology, public policy, homeland security, and her diverse experiences bring unique and valuable perspectives to her work. This combination of passion and expertise allows her to find innovative solutions to complex issues.

Affiliates


  • Hassan Aden retired as chief of police of the Greenville Police Department in Greenville, North Carolina. Prior to that he was the director of the Research and Programs Directorate of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), where he directly oversaw operational programs and research projects aimed at advancing professional police services.  He also served 26 years at the Alexandria Police Department in Alexandria, Virginia, rising to the rank of deputy chief.

    Chief Aden serves as the deputy monitor in the federal consent decree in Baltimore, the associate monitor in the Chicago state consent decree, and the independent police monitor for the Santa Barbara (CA) Police Department. He previously served as the monitor in Cleveland and deputy monitor in Seattle. Chief Aden also works with the U.S. Department of Justice providing technical assistance in areas such as violence reduction, internal accountability, and community policing in multiple cities.   He is a former commissioner of the governing board of the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA), served as a Senior Executive Fellow at the National Policing Institute, and is an active member of the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ). Chief Aden holds a MPA from American University in Washington, DC.


  • Jeff Asher is a nationally recognized data analyst with expertise in evaluating criminal justice data. His work has been instrumental in informing the public discourse on the challenges of using incomplete data to support analyses and inform decisions to solve complex problems.  Before launching AH Datalytics, Mr. Asher worked as an analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency where he worked on the U.S. Department of Defense, and as an analyst with the New Orleans Police Department. He has conducted countless qualitative analyses to produce comprehensive data products to support decision-making.  Mr. Asher has pioneered the use of data visualizations to display compelling insights into the New Orleans criminal justice system in his role as a public safety consultant for the New Orleans City Council. He has refined his authority as an analyst through ingenuity, creativity, and a strong belief that 21st Century analytics is the key to helping organizations access the information that matters.  His work has been published in numerous national publications, including FiveThirtyEight, The New York Times, Slate, and more. He obtained his master’s degree from George Washington University and has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas.


  • Carmen Best distinguished career spans public service and corporate security. She has served as the Director of Global Security at Microsoft, where she oversaw the comprehensive physical security infrastructure worldwide.  Previously, she was the Chief of Police for the Seattle (WA) Police Department, where she dedicated 28 years of service. Rising from an entry-level patrol officer to become the department’s first African American woman chief, Chief Best championed groundbreaking diversity hiring initiatives, established the Collaborative Police Bureau to strengthen community partnerships, and implemented vital safety protocols during the COVID-19 pandemic.  A proud Pacific Northwest native and U.S. Army veteran, Chief Best has received numerous prestigious awards, including the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, the “Woman of the Year” award from the National Police Defense Foundation, and the FBI National Law Enforcement Ethics Award. She is also an Emmy-nominated public safety advocate and author of Black in Blue: Lessons on Leadership, Breaking Barriers, and Racial Reconciliation.  She serves on the United Negro College Fund Leadership Council, the YWCA King County Board, and the Seattle University Criminal Justice Advisory Committee. As a contributor for MSNBC, CNBC, and NBC News, Chief Best shares her insights on leadership, public safety, diversity, and police reform. She holds a MS in Criminal Justice from Northeastern University.


  • Brenda J. Bond-Fortier, PhD, is Professor of Public Administration in the Institute for Public Service at Suffolk University. Dr. Bond-Fortier specializes in organizational change in criminal justice, systematic and collaborative approaches to organizational and community challenges, and the development, implementation, and evaluation of public safety policies and practices. Her book, Organizational Change in an Urban Police Department: Innovating to Reform (2020), analyzes changes in policy, practice and community relationships to understand innovation and organizational transformation in policing.  She has conducted research across the United States, published work in prestigious journals, and been cited in major media outlets. Dr. Bond-Fortier serves as a subject matter expert for the US Department of Justice's Strategies for Policing Innovation initiative and is a senior research fellow for the National Police Foundation. She previously served as a research associate at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government Program in Criminal Justice Policy & Management, as a research advisor for the Northeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council, and as Director of Research and Development at the Lowell, Massachusetts Police Department.
Dr. Bond-Fortier received her PhD and MA in Social Policy from Brandeis University, and her MA in Community Social Psychology and a BS in Criminal Justice from University of Massachusetts, Lowell.


  • Jennifer Cherkauskas, PhD, is a policing scholar with experience partnering with dozens of state, local, and university police agencies on research, evaluation, and technical assistance projects. She has over two decades of project management experience, leading multi-year, state-wide research projects and multi-agency projects.  In her role as a Director at the National Policing Institute, she provided executive oversight to a portfolio of over a dozen projects funded by federal, state, local, and philanthropic organizations.  Dr. Cherkauskas’ areas of expertise include police training, organizational change, and officer behavior. She holds a PhD from Pennsylvania State University.


  • Jadine Chou has spent two decades working in government service with specializations in school safety, public housing operations, policy development and community engagement.  Most recently, she served as the Chief of Safety and Security at Chicago Public Schools for 14 years, promoting the safety of over 320,000 students and 40,000 employees in 640 schools across the city with management responsibilities for over 2,000 professional safety and security staff members.  She and her team partnered with colleagues on the academic teams to implement innovative, effective and proactive practices to drive calmer and safer school climates.   During her tenure, the district saw a 79% reduction in out of school suspensions and 68% reduction in police notifications.  Prior to joining Chicago Public Schools, she held executive-level roles at various Fortune 500 companies such as Kraft Foods and AT&T as well as at the Chicago Housing Authority, working under four Mayors.   She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including most recently, the City of Chicago Kathy Osterman Outstanding Innovator Award. Ms. Chou earned a BS in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern University and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.


  • Maurice Classen has spent two decades in government and philanthropic positions in various leadership roles.  He served over two years as Chief of Staff to the Mayor of Chicago, with responsibility for day-to-day city operations, including throughout the COVID-19 global pandemic. In addition to managing the successful development and passage of budgets that resulted in the largest investments in violence reduction programming in Chicago, Mr. Clasen was also the primary drafter of the City’s police oversight legislation.  Mr. Classen previously served as Director of Strategy at the Chicago Police Department, building a 25-person team of analysts, auditors, and project managers focused on the mandates of the consent decree with the Illinois Attorney General.  The team also created Chicago’s data dashboards, an initiative that posted—for the first time in the city’s history—on the department’s website real time data on use of force, hate crimes, and community trust.  Mr. Classen served as a program officer at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation focused on community policing, procedural justice, violence reduction, police oversight and city accountability issues. He began his career in Seattle as criminal prosecutor in King County (Seattle), Washington. Mr. Classen holds a BS from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and earned his JD at the University of Washington School of Law.


  • Hugh T. Clements Jr. worked his entire 38-year law enforcement career with the Providence (RI) Police Department. He rose through the ranks, working undercover in the Special Investigations Bureau, and in the Detective Bureau before becoming a District patrol commander, and serving his last twelve years as the chief.  In 2023, Chief Clements was appointed by Merrick Garland to serve in the U.S. Department of Justice as the Director of the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office). In that role he directed the overall grants, training & technical assistance, and resources of the Office. He is the recipient of numerous awards for outstanding police work including the PPD’s Chief’s Award, awards from the FBI, ATF, and DEA, the White House Champions of Change, and the 2024 President’s Award from the Major County Sheriff’s Association. He entered the Rhode Island Attorney General’s Criminal Justice Hall of Fame in 2018, and the City of Providence named the Public Safety Auditorium and Roll Call room in his honor. Chief Clements holds a BA from the University of Rhode Island, a BS from Roger Williams University and an MS in Criminal Justice from Boston University. Chief Clements also served as a visiting Fellow with Brown University and the Policy Lab for several years.