David Adkins
Executive Director, CEO, The Council of State Governments
David Adkins is the ninth executive director and CEO of The Council of State Governments (CSG), which includes the CSG Justice Center among its national public policy initiatives. As a legislator in Kansas, Adkins chaired a select committee on juvenile justice and led the successful effort to develop and enact comprehensive reform of the juvenile justice system, which resulted in closing state juvenile correctional facilities and directing more state resources to support community-level, evidence-based interventions and prevention. Adkins chaired the Kansas Youth Authority and the Kansas Advisory Group on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. He also led the effort that created the Kansas Endowment for Youth and the Kansas Children’s Cabinet and that dedicated Kansas’s share of the national tobacco master settlement to fund proven and promising initiatives to grow positive outcomes for Kansas kids. He is a graduate of the University of Kansas School of Law and received the Kansas Bar Association’s Outstanding Young Lawyer Award.