Sharon Sayles-Belton

Sharon Sayles-Belton is the Government Partnerships & Alliances Lead for Thomson Reuters. Sayles-Belton was the first woman and African American to be elected as mayor of Minneapolis in 1994 and served until 2001. After leaving the mayor’s office, she became a senior fellow at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs Roy Wilkins Center for Human Relations and Social Justice and joined Thomson Reuters in 2010.

A community leader and activist, Sayles Belton is involved in race equality, community and neighborhood development, public policy, women’s, family and children’s issues, police-community relations and youth development. In 1978 she co-founded the Harriet Tubman Shelter for Battered Women in Minneapolis (now the Tubman Family Center). She is also a co-founder of the National Coalition Against Sexual Assault. She contributed to the Neighborhood Revitalization Program, Clean Water Partnership, Children’s Healthcare and Hospital, the American Bar Association, the Bush Foundation, the United States Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities, and Hennepin County Medical Center by chairing or serving on their boards.