Long before she became a familiar face at Chicago health fairs and community food pantries, Lady Deborah Conley Brooks was building spreadsheets and managing multimillion dollar lending portfolios. Her path from corporate finance to faith based advocacy is not a career pivot so much as a widening of purpose one rooted in the same values of service and stewardship she learned growing up in her father’s church.
Raised in a Legacy of Faith
Brooks is the eldest daughter of Rev. and Mrs. William H. Conley, founder and pastor of New Alpha Progressive Baptist Church in Chicago. That upbringing shaped a worldview centered on service long before she entered the business world. Today she is the wife of National Recording Artist and Pastor Dr. Darius Brooks, Senior Pastor of Grace Central Church in Westchester, Illinois, and the mother of their daughter, Dasha Lyric Brooks, a December 2025 graduate of Texas Southern University.
Speaking about the work she now leads through the First Ladies Health Initiative (FLHI), Brooks described the underlying philosophy that has guided much of her community work. She believe that if they bring the services and the vaccinations to the communities that people are familiar with, and they trust, that they are more likely to have greater prevention of some of their toughest healthcare concerns.
A Foundation in Finance
Before her ministry and nonprofit work took center stage, Brooks built a rigorous career in banking. Brooks earned a Bachelor of Science in Economics, with a minor in Music, and an MBA with an emphasis in Finance, both from Northern Illinois University. As a student, she served as Minority Relations Advisor and President of the Black Student Caucus, earning Dean’s List honors and a spot on Who’s Who Among Students in American Colleges and Universities. Her graduate studies included an internship at Prudential Securities on Wall Street.
That academic foundation launched a career at American National Bank, where she entered a selective Officer Training Program and was promoted to Relationship Manager within a year, then later to Vice President. She went on to serve as Vice President of Middle Market Commercial Lending at The Northern Trust Company, managing relationships with companies whose annual revenues ranged from $500,000 to more than $5 billion.
Turning Financial Skill Toward Community Need
For more than a decade, Brooks has served as Co-Founder and Executive Director of Grace Central Outreach (GCO), applying her financial and organizational expertise to programs serving women, children, seniors, veterans, and families. GCO’s flagship initiative, its Food Pantry, provides free groceries to more than 500 families each month in partnership with the Greater Chicago Food Depository a number that climbed past 1,000 families monthly during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic…