ST. LOUIS — Mayor-elect Cara Spencer on Thursday officially announced her picks for top positions, the latest moves in a mad dash from Spencer’s two-day-old election victory to her inauguration at noon Tuesday.

Spencer, on the steps of City Hall, officially announced Nancy Hawes, an attorney who’s held high-level jobs at some of the city’s largest firms, as her chief of staff. She also announced her deputy chief of staff and her communications director — plus six new committees, stacked with civic leaders, to examine critical issues, from public safety to city services.

“We’ve hit the ground running,” Spencer told reporters at City Hall. “We’re getting to work.”

She said that since the election, she has sat down with Mayor Tishaura O. Jones to go through transition logistics and talked to Gov. Mike Kehoe, St. Louis County Executive Sam Page and other regional leaders about working together.

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And she indicated changes are coming to city departments, which she has vowed to improve.

One change had already arrived: City Counselor Sheena Hamilton wrote a letter to Jones, Spencer and other top officials this week telling them that she would be gone on inauguration day .

The stream of news headlined the second day in the shortest mayoral transition in recent memory, the product of a quirk in the calendar this year.

The staffing announcements could ultimately be among the most important Spencer makes as mayor. She has big plans to fix problems with trash pickup and pothole filling, revitalize downtown and reverse decades of population loss. But she’ll need help.

Hawes, the attorney, will be the new mayor’s No. 2. She brings experience as a partner at law firms like Polsinelli and Armstrong Teasdale, as a board member at community institutions like the Muny and St. Louis Public Radio, and as a single mother who earned her law degree well into adulthood, with three kids in tow.

Spencer said Emily Thenhaus will be her deputy chief of staff. Thenhaus served as a spokesperson for Mayor Lyda Krewson, then took a job running the taxing district that helps market and attract businesses on Cherokee Street — which Spencer represented as alderwoman.

Jason Deem, a friend of Spencer’s and a developer in the area, said Thenhaus has done remarkable work handling everything from events to social media to finances to all the little things businesses need. “She’s very organized,” he said, “and very impressive.”

Beverly Isom will be Spencer’s communications director. Her resume begins with a job at the St. Louis American, the prominent Black newspaper, winds through the mayor’s office in Atlanta and federal agencies there, and includes more recent stints with Nestlé Purina and FleishmanHillard in St. Louis.

Spencer would not say more about forthcoming picks in the news conference on Thursday.

But she said her team was evaluating the current leadership of city departments.

“We’re looking at making some changes in several key positions at this point,” she said.

Spencer has already said she would fire Streets Director Betherny Williams after the city’s dismal response to the January snowstorm, and would push to replace development chief Neal Richardson after a series of disagreements, most notably about the troubled North Side business grant program.

Spencer also announced six advisory committees tasked with writing a report, due at the end of July, on how the city can improve city services and schools, attract businesses and immigrants, and build up the city’s neighborhoods, among other things.Notable committee members include Steve Smith, the developer behind City Foundry in Midtown, Dr. Alex Garza of SSM Health, who helped lead the region’s pandemic response, Anna Crosslin, who used to run the International Institute of St. Louis, which coordinates immigration services here, and Michael Wolff, the former chief justice of the Missouri Supreme Court.

Post-Dispatch photographers capture hundreds of images each week; here's a glimpse at the week of March 30, 2025. Video edited by Jenna Jones.