Karl Dean is the sixth mayor of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County. He was elected in 2007 and was re-elected in 2011. Dean’s priorities are improving schools, making neighborhoods safer, and bringing more and better jobs to Nashville. His first economic development initiative was to help women- and minority-owned businesses receive a fair share of Metro Government contracts. In 2008, he formed the Mayor’s Minority Business Advisory Council and later passed an ordinance creating the Procurement Non-Discrimination Program, which is administered by the Office of Minority and Women Business. Before being elected to office, Dean served as Metro law director from 1999 to January 2007, and has served as an adjunct professor of law at Vanderbilt University.