If you glance at her resume, Claire Levin can seem like a high school student who joins 50 clubs to boost her college application … and then keeps doing it.

But that’s not quite right, she said.

“I feel like I paused that in college,” she said, laughing. “I took college to recover, and I’m getting back into that.”

Levin, 28, is the senior executive specialist at Youth Opportunities Unlimited (Y.O.U.), a Cleveland-based workforce development organization that primarily serves young people of color from low-income communities. Levin has been at Y.O.U. in some capacity since 2018, and  Y.O.U. president and CEO Craig Dorn jokes that she’s simultaneously the youngest and most mature person on the senior staff.

“I’m always a big fan of people who are competent and nice,” Dorn said. “Sometimes people are really nice but they’re incompetent, and sometimes effective people can be jerks. 

“She’s just fabulous at everything she does — and she does everything with joy and passion and a sense of humor.”

Levin’s resume includes a second page filled just with her community involvement and volunteer activities, and she peppers her sentences with such phrases as “when I made the pivot” and “knocking down silos.” But for all of her education — she holds a bachelor’s degree in public affairs from Ohio State University and a master’s degree in nonprofit organizations from Case Western Reserve University — and for all of her work with nonprofits, her most important experience was the five years she spent working as a waiter’s assistant at Balaton, a Hungarian restaurant that was in Shaker Square.

“The things I learned in that job are still applicable today,” she said. “I’m still trying to find the answer to someone’s question. If it’s me, great, I can answer that. But I never like to leave a loop open. So it’s that inherent customer service, but it’s also having a lot of fun while I work.

“And when things go wrong, I just think, ‘We’ll do better next time.’ It’s not personal; it’s not thinking people have ill will; it’s just owning that things are going to be better next time.”

That approach is what leads people outside of Y.O.U. to walk up to Dorn and whisper, “Man, that Claire is going places.”

“I just tell them she’s already there,” he said. “She’s going to be an important person in Cleveland as the years evolve. She’s someone who gets stuff done.”

Levin isn’t sure where she'll end up, but it’s a safe bet her choice will be based on the impact it has on the community rather than her checkbook. Levin once applied at a for-profit company, and when they asked her why she wanted to work there, “I couldn’t give an answer that made sense to me.”

“That was a big lightbulb moment, where I’m like, ‘I think I'm where I’m supposed to be,’” she said. 

Listen to Claire speak about her inclusion in this year’s 20 in their 20’s class and share their experiences working at Y.O.U.

June 06, 2022 06:00 AM