Tikki Brown

Tikki Brown serves as the commissioner for the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families. 

• Responsible for services and policies that facilitate adoption, foster care, child protection, child support, child care and early learning, cash and food support, and youth justice.
• Focus on supporting Gov. Walz and Lt. Gov. Flanagan’s stand to make Minnesota the best place for children to grow up while advancing DCYF's mission of increasing positive and equitable outcomes and responsibly stewarding public resources.

As the inaugural commissioner since the agency’s inception in 2024, Brown has built a foundation of supports and operational capacity that has enabled the agency to embrace a whole family systems approach, uplift innovation, improve technological capacity, enhance lived expertise, and engage in deep collaboration with partners and community. In her more than 20 years of state agency service, she previously led and supported strategies that served hundreds of thousands of individuals and families with low incomes.

Brown is a graduate of the University of Minnesota, the Senior Leadership Institute at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and Enterprise Learning and Development, and a fellow of the Equity Leaders in Action Network Fellowship, BUILD Initiative. She is currently a member of the American Public Human Services Association Leadership Council and the Center for Civic Futures Public Sector Advisory Board.