Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin will hold four town hall meetings during the next several weeks as part of an effort to make the little-known office a resource for Chicagoans struggling to launch businesses or land investors.

Breaking from the behind-the-scenes path taken by her predecessors, Conyears-Ervin said she is determined to leverage her control of the city’s approximately $9 billion investment portfolio to help boost Chicago’s economically struggling communities by publicly holding the financial institutions the city does business with “accountable.”