In April 2020, the Baltimore City Council passed Ordinance 20-354 (“Ethics Board – Administration and Staff”), which designated the Baltimore City Inspector General as the ex officio Executive Director of the Board of Ethics and permitted the IG to designate staff to assist the Board in performing its responsibilities.  The Ordinance became effective on October 10, 2020.  

Current Staff

Isabel Mercedes Cumming, Executive Director (ex officio)

Isabel Mercedes Cumming has been Baltimore’s Inspector General since 2018. You can find her full bio here.

J. Christoph Amberger, Director

J. Christoph Amberger was designated the Director of the Ethics Board in July 2022. A native of West Berlin, Germany, he studied in Berlin, Göttingen, and Aberdeen (UK), before obtaining his M.A. from St. John’s College in Annapolis. After a 20-year career in the publishing industry, he earned his J.D. from the University of Baltimore School of Law in 2015. Following a brief stint as an attorney in private practice, he joined the State’s Attorney’s Office for Baltimore City, where he served as an Assistant State’s Attorney in the Public Trust and Police Integrity Unit from 2017 to 2022.

Maura Ford, Ethics Officer

Maura Ford is an Ethics Officer in the Office of the Inspector General, designated by IG Cumming to serve the Baltimore City Ethics Board. Prior to joining the City, Maura completed a Fulbright- García Robles English Teaching Assistantship at the Universidad Tecnológica de Aguascalientes in Aguascalientes, Mexico. In 2019, Maura graduated from La Salle University with a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Spanish. Additionally, she studied at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in Córdoba, Argentina. Maura is originally from Baltimore.