More than half of master’s degrees in public administration each year are earned by women.
But women are still vastly underrepresented in city and county management, according to data from the International City/County Management Association. In 2023, just 23% of the organization’s members were women.
Even fewer of those leaders are Latina, like Daniela Lujano Rivas. She was hired as the city manager of Newton, which has 18,000 people, in January.
Rivas has a business degree and a master’s degree in public administration from Wichita State. She spent the last decade crisscrossing south-central and southeast Kansas to work as the finance director and city administrator in smaller towns. She is originally from Wichita and spent her summers growing up in Newton. Rivas was named as an honoree of the Wichita Business Journal's 2024 40 under 40 class.
She spoke with KMUW’s Celia Hack and The Range about her path to leadership, her goals for Latina representation in public service and the story of her parent’s journey to the U.S.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
You grew up in Wichita, but your parents are originally from Mexico. What brought them here?
It was mostly economic opportunities. Dad … actually tells us the story that he wanted to marry mom, but he didn't have any money to do it. And she was from a pretty middle-class family in Mexico, and he grew up in poverty. And he wanted to show her and her family that he could do it; that he could give her the life that she deserved.
They migrated here in the early ’80s from Jalisco, Mexico, and they set roots in Wichita. They worked for the meatpacking plant. And Wichita, Kansas, gave them a chance.
Your career started as an accountant at Sedgwick County. What inspired you to pursue city management beyond that?
When I was at Sedgwick County, through the mentorship program, there was a personality assessment that was done for everyone in that program. And a woman by (the name of) Leslie Neinast came to me and reviewed the outcome of the personality assessment to me. I remember her walking into the room and … she grabs this report and throws it on the table. And she puts her hands on her hips and says, “What are you doing here?”
She knew that my calling was not to be an accountant. She knew that my calling was to lead. My calling was to build relationships. … So she sort of gave me the confidence to say, “I can do something better.”
You went on to work in city finance and city management throughout south-central and southeast Kansas. What sort of challenges or projects did you deal with in those positions?
Just since I've been in public service, I can see how public trust has been affected. And there's a saying that decisions happen at the speed of trust in local government. It makes it much more difficult for a city council or city commission to make decisions if their constituents don't trust them; if they don't trust staff.
That's not something you just work on and say, “Here you go. This is it. This is how we do it.” It's lots of factors. It's lots of work. It's sustained work. … You have a communication framework, and then you have a feedback loop. You have listening sessions. You have transparency models. You have all these things that are working for building public trust.
You have a nonprofit called Latinas Leading Public Service. Can you tell me about your work there and what you want to see accomplished?
I travel across Kansas, when invited, to tell my story, specifically to middle, high school and college students. Telling them … sort of my story and my career path of how I surpassed some of those systemic barriers that I had growing up as a Latina, a girl in a conservative family. I was told I couldn't move away from home to go to college. I had to learn how to cook and have dinner ready for my family. … But at the same time, I wanted to be a career woman and move away from home. And so I talk about those things so that other young girls can hear and see that, “Oh, I can do this.”
I want other women and girls like me to enter public service because I think Latinas have a lot to give to leadership. … Resilience. They're empathetic. They put the person first. And they're problem solvers. I can't tell you how many times I've been told: “Daniela, you can't solve that. Don't try to solve that!” It's because I am a problem solver, naturally.
You’re also part of Latinos Unidos, another nonprofit working to bring bilingual resources to Spanish speakers in Newton. About 20% of the city is Hispanic. In your role as city manager, are you working on anything to better communicate with the Latino population?
As part of our engagement framework that we're working on right now to build public trust, a piece of that is engaging with our Latino community. Because it is such a big percentage of our community that we're not meeting their needs.
I think we haven't gotten to the place where we're like, “OK, we need to start meeting people halfway.” And that means speaking to them in Spanish.
My director of communications … she has seen the need. But you need support. You need support of not only your director levels, you need support of your city manager and your commission. And until that support is all there, you can't really move forward with programming.
Your parents made a huge move to Wichita in their 20s – and now you are leading the city of Newton. What do they think about the position you now work in?
They're very proud parents. I have a twin sister and a brother, and they constantly tell us that, “Our lives – they feel like they had meaning because they created three individuals that dedicate their lives to serving.”
They tell their story to anybody who will listen that you don't have to have a lot. … I mean they didn’t finish sixth grade. So they weren't educated. They didn't have a lot of money. But they were faithful, ethical, good people, hard workers.
They firmly believe what made the difference with us is showing us that a good hard day's worth of work is how you get far in life.
