Detroit has a way of teaching you what excellence looks like.
Sometimes it shows up in a packed election room where the lights never seem to cut off. Sometimes it shows up in a boardroom where somebody is fighting to get resources into neighborhoods that keep getting promised everything and handed scraps. Sometimes it shows up at a union hall, where a woman walks into history because she refused to accept the limits that were placed on her.
That is the heartbeat behind the Michigan Chronicle’s 2026 Women of Excellence recognition, and this year’s special honorees carry that heartbeat in four very different lanes of leadership.
A lifetime strategist who helped Michigan learn how to talk to its people with respect and cultural fluency. A labor leader who broke barriers at the highest levels of the UAW. A philanthropic executive who has moved hundreds of millions of dollars into Southeast Michigan with a sharp eye on impact. A City Clerk who has modernized the machinery of democracy in Detroit while the whole country watched.
The Michigan Chronicle is spotlighting these honorees because their excellence is measurable. It’s visible. It’s built into systems that touch people’s lives.
Georgella Muirhead, founder of Berg Muirhead, is the 2026 Michigan Chronicle Women of Excellence Lifetime Achievement Award honoree, and her career reads like a blueprint for what it means to communicate with communities instead of at them. Muirhead brings more than 50 years of experience in communications and community engagement across government, corporate, and nonprofit sectors. She started her career as communications director for Ann Arbor, East Lansing, and Southfield, then went on to lead Detroit’s 32-member communications team, overseeing citywide messaging and high-profile events that included presidential debates.
That work matters because cities run on trust as much as they run on budgets. Messaging shapes whether residents feel included or ignored, whether they understand services or get shut out by bureaucracy, whether public policy feels like something happening to them or something being built with them in mind.
In 1998, Muirhead co-founded Berg Muirhead & Associates, now 98Forward, which is described as Michigan’s largest minority-owned PR firm. Under her leadership, the agency has served more than 150 clients and built a legacy focused on reaching multicultural and hard-to-reach audiences through campaigns designed to deliver results.
Her professional recognition is deep. She is an accredited PRSA member and has received more than two dozen national, state, and local awards, including the PRSA Silver Anvil Award and the AMA Grand Effie Award. In 2021, she was inducted into the PRSA Detroit Hall of Fame, a nod to her impact on the profession and the people behind it.
Muirhead’s excellence also shows up in the way she has mentored and guided other professionals, championing inclusive communication strategies and helping shape the next generation of PR leaders.
Her story is Detroit-shaped, grounded in community engagement as a practice and a responsibility.
Laura Dickerson is being recognized as 2026 Woman of the Year, and her trajectory speaks directly to the lived reality of what it takes for Black women to move through institutions that were never designed with them in mind.
Dickerson was elected to serve as Vice President by the UAW International Executive Board in June 2025 and sworn in on July 1, succeeding Vice President Chuck Browning, who retired June 30. The milestone is historic by the facts provided: she is the first African American woman in the history of the UAW to be elected to the International Executive Board, and she is now the first African American woman to serve as Vice President.
Dickerson serves as the Director of the UAW Ford, Agricultural Implement, and Chaplaincy Departments, and she is the former Director of the TOP and Purchasing Departments. She was assigned as Director of the Technical, Office and Professional (TOP) Department in March 2024. Prior to that, she was elected UAW Region 1A Director at a special convention in 2021 and re-elected in December 2022. Her leadership track also includes being appointed assistant director of Region 1A in 2020.
Her union roots run deep. Dickerson joined the UAW in 1997 as a member of UAW Local 600. She was elected chairperson of her unit for three terms from 2002 to 2010 and joined the bargaining team in 1999. She was elected delegate to the 34th and 35th UAW Constitutional Conventions and was selected to serve on the 35th Convention Resolutions Committee, where she was elected and served as chairperson. She has served as president of the UAW Local 600 TOP Advisory Council and held an elected position on the UAW National Community Action Program (CAP) Advisory Council in 2010.
The details matter because labor leadership is not symbolic work.
It involves negotiations, committees, governance, and the daily weight of representing workers’ lives. Dickerson served on the 2011 UAW Ford National Negotiations team. She served as project manager for the UAW Staff Voluntary Employees’ Beneficiary Association (VEBA) transition in 2014. She served as UAW Staff Council Vice President, negotiating the Staff Council agreement in 2016 and 2020. She also served as the UAW-Ford Enhanced Care Program Pilot Lead in 2012.
Her community presence is part of the record provided as well. Through her roles with Local 600, she has volunteered with Detroit Central United Methodist Church’s Feed the Homeless initiative and with the UAW-Ford Feed the Homeless project for Labor Day. Dickerson is also a breast cancer survivor and has participated in the Susan G. Komen “Race for the Cure” for many years.
Her education path includes both a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Central Michigan University. Her bachelor’s degree is in Industrial Supervision and Management with a minor in Industrial Safety. Her master’s degree is in General Administration with a concentration in Health Services Administration. She has received awards including the Women of Excellence Award from the Michigan Chronicle in April 2021, Detroit Woman of the Year in 2024, and Exemplary Woman in Labor in 2025.
Kylee Mitchell Wells is receiving the 2026 Vanguard Award, and the word “vanguard” fits because her work sits at the intersection of resources, strategy, and the kind of long-view planning that determines whether a region grows equitably or leaves communities behind again.
Wells is the founding Executive Director of Ballmer Group’s Southeast Michigan office, where she leads the organization’s philanthropic efforts in the region. Under her guidance, Ballmer Group has invested over $330 million to date across the tri-county area.
That number signals scale, and it also signals responsibility. Philanthropic dollars can be transformative when they are deployed with local knowledge, accountability, and clear goals. Wells’ career history shows a consistent focus on housing, financial stability, and the public systems that either support families or fail them.
Before Ballmer Group, Wells served as the founding Senior Director at Enterprise Community Partners’ Michigan office, where she developed strategies for capital deployment, program implementation, and policy advocacy to address housing needs in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods across Michigan.
Her public-sector experience includes serving as an appointee in the City of Detroit’s Office of Grants Management, overseeing the strategic allocation, timely expenditure, and compliance of $185 million in federal grants. She began her work with the city as a management consultant at Conway MacKenzie, assisting with Detroit’s financial restructuring during the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, focusing on streamlining financial processes and improving operations within the Planning and Development Department.
Wells has also served as a Program Officer for Financial Stability at United Way for Southeastern Michigan, managing sector-based workforce partnerships and overseeing the strategic investment of a $10 million philanthropic fund. Her experience also reaches beyond Michigan, including service as a Program Director in Washington, D.C., under Mayor Adrian Fenty, where she led Bank on DC, described as an economic inclusion initiative focused on improving financial access for low- and moderate-income residents.
Her corporate finance background includes more than a decade of experience at BOSCH-USA, General Motors Corporation, and the Detroit Regional Chamber. She holds a Master of Public Administration from Baruch College – School of Public Affairs and a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from Davenport University.
She has been honored by Crain’s Detroit Business as one of Michigan’s “100 Most Influential Women” and by American’s Community Council as their 2023 “Inclusion and Innovation” award recipient. She is also a former National Urban Fellow and a Michigan Political Leadership Program Fellow.
Wells is a proud Detroit native shaped by her education and experiences within Detroit Public Schools.
Janice M. Winfrey is also receiving the 2026 Vanguard Award, and her excellence lives in the infrastructure of democracy, the parts of civic life most people only notice when something goes wrong.
As Detroit City Clerk and Chairperson of the Election Commission, Winfrey has governed three charter-mandated roles since being sworn into office in 2006: City Clerk, Official Record Keeper, and Chief Elections Officer. She also serves as Chairperson of the Detroit Election Commission.
Her accomplishments are extensive and concrete. She established the Detroit Archives and Records Management Division to ensure citizens and interested parties have access to current and archived city records. She implemented a state-of-the-art City Council agenda management system designed to give citizens greater access to city government. She successfully implemented five new state-of-the-art voting systems in the City of Detroit.
Winfrey also established a precedent in the election community as one of the first among eleven major U.S. cities to release 100% of election results by 11:00 p.m. on election night during the 2006 election year.
After the passage of Proposal 3 in 2018, which established no-reason absentee voting in Michigan, Winfrey launched voter education and outreach to ensure Detroit voters understood the change in the law. The Detroit Department of Elections became the first in Michigan to establish satellite absentee voting centers, reducing Election Day congestion and improving voter access.
Her leadership during the 2020 Presidential Election during the COVID-19 pandemic is also detailed in the materials provided. Winfrey secured an additional $7.2 million to recruit and train poll workers and expanded voting access through twenty-two satellite absentee voting centers and thirty secure ballot drop boxes across the city. Detroit processed and tabulated more than 174,000 absentee ballots, producing a 51% voter turnout, while administering an election that drew national attention.
Her modernization work includes procuring and implementing the ReliaVote automated mail ballot system, described as a secure end-to-end platform that manages the preparation, mailing, tracking, and processing of absentee ballots, automating outbound and returned ballot handling to strengthen chain-of-custody while improving speed, accuracy, and transparency. She also modernized and reorganized absentee voting operations and the Central Counting system, and introduced electronic poll books and high-speed tabulators to support balanced counting boards.
Winfrey is a graduate of Cass Technical High School and has been recognized as a Distinguished Alumna. She attended Eastern Michigan University and Wayne State University. Her memberships include the Detroit Federation of Teachers; the Association of Wayne County Clerks; the Michigan Municipal Clerks Association; the International Association of Clerks, Recorders, Election Officials and Treasurers; the National League of Cities; and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated. She is also an active member of Greater Grace Temple.
The Michigan Chronicle will honor these Women of Excellence alumni awardees at the 2026 Women of Excellence recognition event, where community leaders, family, and supporters will gather in one room to celebrate their induction into the sisterhood of excellence.
The ceremony will take place on Friday, March 27 2026, at Huntington Place in Detroit, bringing together women across industries who are shaping Michigan’s future with purpose and power.
Taken together, these honorees represent the kind of excellence that keeps Detroit moving, always has.
Georgella Muirhead helped shape how institutions communicate with the communities they serve. Laura Dickerson has carried workers’ voices into rooms where history gets written. Kylee Mitchell Wells has helped direct major investment toward systems that determine whether families stabilize and neighborhoods thrive. Janice M. Winfrey has built and modernized the processes that allow Detroiters to vote, to be counted, and to trust the count.
The Michigan Chronicle’s Women of Excellence recognition has always been about more than titles. This year’s special honorees show why. Their excellence is built into the city, into the region, into the structures that touch daily life — records, ballots, housing, wages, public trust, and the next generation watching what leadership looks like when it’s done with discipline and purpose.
