CEO

Living Cities

Reese Fayde has a career dedicated to creative problem solving. Whether working with top executives, community civic leaders, or policymakers, she identifies and brings the needed factual information to deliberations that facilitate the process of finding practical solutions to tough issues.

As the first CEO of Living Cities, a consortium of some of America's largest foundations and financial institutions, Ms. Fayde guided a structural transformation and then operated the new independent organization that invested more than $543 million in 23 cities, leveraging over $15 billion in construction of homes, schools, commercial space, and community facilities. In this process she sought and developed successful partnerships with mayors, congressmen, think tanks, and civic leaders with the objective of bringing more attention, creative ideas, and resources to urban neighborhoods and their residents.

Ms. Fayde has a long history of service in the public and non-profit sectors working for more than 20 years with administrators, residents, and community-based organizations to rebuild, revitalize and manage affordable housing complexes in older urban neighborhoods. Operating a successful consulting business for 25 years, Ms. Fayde's clients have included the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), local public housing authorities, state housing finance agencies, community development corporations, and resident associations.

Whether speaking to a gathering of policymakers, practitioners, or reporters in Abuja, Nigeria, Washington, DC, or Columbus, OH, Ms. Fayde is an honest, informed, and enthusiastic voice about the options and opportunities that cities face today. In her current real estate investing business, she is focused on expanding the presence of middle class households in urban neighborhoods, seeing this group as critical to the long-term viability of cities.