Tonantzin Carmona

Tonantzin Carmona is a Fellow at Brookings Metro. Throughout her professional career, she has designed and implemented inclusive and equitable public policy solutions to meet the needs of historically disinvested communities. Her research interests include wealth and inequality, digital assets and financial technologies, and public finance at the intersection of racial equity.

Carmona’s recent scholarship at Brookings has focused on the risks and drawbacks of cryptocurrencies, particularly for Black, Latino, and other marginalized communities seeking to access financial services or build wealth in the United States. Additionally, through cutting-edge research, policy frameworks and solutions, Carmona aims to reshape policy conversations around Latino wealth in the United States.

Carmona has appeared in Bloomberg Tax, Associated Press, NPR Marketplace, Quartz, and Tech Crunch. Her work has also been featured in Bloomberg, Washington Post, CNN, Los Angeles Times, Politico, Axios, Fortune and Crain’s Chicago Business.

Prior to her work at Brookings, Carmona’s professional background spanned roles in public policy, communications, community outreach, politics and philanthropy. Previously, Carmona spearheaded citywide and intergovernmental policy initiatives when she served as the Chief of Policy for the Chicago City Clerk and as the Director of the Office of New Americans at the City of Chicago Mayor’s Office. As Chief of Policy, Carmona led the Chicago Fines, Fees & Access Collaborative, which culminated in significant reforms of the City’s regressive public finance policies. She launched Chicago’s municipal ID card, which simultaneously serves as a transit and library card, and she led the creation of several immigrant integration policies in Chicago, including the city’s first language access ordinance. Carmona also championed federal policies through her work as the Illinois Political Director for the 2020 presidential campaign of U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren and as Senator Warren’s Deputy Press Secretary on Capitol Hill.

Carmona holds an M.P.A from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a B.A. in political science, with a minor in Latino and Latina Studies from Northwestern University.