The Chicago Bears interviewed Kwesi Adofo-Mensah for their GM vacancy. Here’s what to know about the Cleveland Browns VP of football operations.

The Chicago Bears have reached out to at least 12 general manager and nine coaching candidates for interviews. As they go through the process, we’re looking at each of the prospective hires.

Kwesi Adofo-Mensah interviewed for the GM opening Thursday, the team announced.

<mark class="hl_orange">Kwesi Adofo-Mensah</mark>

Age: 40

Title: Cleveland Browns vice president of football operations.

Experience

Browns general manager Andrew Berry hired Adofo-Mensah to his current role in 2020. Before that, Adofo-Mensah spent seven seasons with the San Francisco 49ers, going from manager of football research and development to director of the same department. He was part of the staff that helped the 49ers to a Super Bowl LIV appearance. He interviewed for the Carolina Panthers GM job last year.

You should know

Adofo-Mensah has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Princeton and a master’s degree in economics from Stanford, according to Cleveland.com. A Browns profile of him said he worked on Wall Street as a commodities trader and portfolio manager before he joined the 49ers.

Bears connection

Adofo-Mensah was with the 49ers during the later part of Vic Fangio’s time as defensive coordinator in San Francisco. Fangio was the Bears defensive coordinator from 2015-18.

What has been said

Berry spoke to The Athletic for their 40 under 40 profile of Adofo-Mensah.

“No. 1, it’s his general cognitive abilities,” Berry said of what made him want to bring Adofo-Mensah to Cleveland. “He’s a super, super bright guy, and that comes across within the first two minutes that you meet him.

“No. 2, and probably just as importantly, it’s just people skills. You could see how he had been able to build relationships across a number of different groups during his time at San Francisco in a role that can be very challenging, because you have to be able to not only develop (analytic) insights, but communicate them and get people to buy in. And then the other thing was just his breadth of understanding of the sport and football operations. So even though he had formally just led the 49ers’ research group, you could tell that he understood team building, people, relationships and managerial skills at a much higher level.”