Cultivator of untapped potential with decades of experience in construction management, specializing in serving clients and communities of color through equitable procurement and impactful development.

Claudette Soto is the President and CEO of baso, Ltd., a construction management/owner representative/permit coordination firm in the Chicagoland area whose mission is to elevate equitable procurement and meaningful minority and woman owned business participation while delivering projects on time and on budget. In 2022 Claudette launched baso Tecnica, the only Latina owned architectural and structural forensics firm in the Chicagoland area. She has been working in the construction management, architectural, and engineering field for over 20 years. In 2001, while an undergrad at IIT, she started a grassroots organization named VAMOS, that introduced STEAM fields and the language of higher education to underserved middle school students. VAMOS has evolved to also include mentoring and career guidance for first generation university students and architects and engineers who identify as people of color.

In 2022 she was appointed by Mayor Lightfoot to serve as Commissioner to the City of Chicago’s Plan Commission and also serves as a Director for IIT’s Alumni Board and is the Chair of the Admissions Committee. Claudette formally served on the Board of Trustees and Governance Committee at Mother McAuley High School, was board chair of the Rauner Family YMCA, member of the Chapa Scholarship Fund, and IIT Arquitectos student chapter advisor.

She has been featured on the U Channel 26 story “Breaking Down Barriers in Construction”, WGN as Chicago’s Very Own, Univision story series and award recipient “Somos Orgullo”, was the guest speaker during ComEd’s Solar Spotlight Program, the guest speaker for BUILD’s La Mesa Latina event, a TEDx speaker on the topic of “Change Architecture-Change Community” as well as a speaker at the Bishop John R. Gorman Institute for Leadership in Catholic Education on the topic of “Architecture and How it Inspires Learning and Change”. Claudette was also a SASDI Fellow at IIT.

Claudette is a graduate from the Metropolitan Leadership Institute, and is a proud recipient of a HACIA scholarship and the Joseph Claussen Award for Community Service.

Ms. Soto attributes her strong will for success, outspoken demeanor and thirst for change in her community, to the education she received while attending Mother McAuley High School, a single gender high school in Chicago and growing up in the southside community of Gage Park. There she received the confidence to pursue degrees not traditionally pursued by women and to know her voice mattered.