Community Development Planner Jobs in Chicago, IL

Help drive a transformative initiative to expand the creation and preservation of affordable, workforce, and middle-income multifamily housing across the United States. As the nation's leading multifamily lender, we are uniquely positioned to leverage the firm's scale, capital, relationships, and expertise to address the country's housing shortage. This highly visible leadership role offers direct exposure to senior management and the opportunity to shape the firm's long-term housing strategy and public impact.

As an Executive Director, Housing Strategy Leader within Community Development Banking, you drive a transformative, multi-year effort to expand the creation and preservation of affordable, workforce, and middle-income multifamily housing across the United States. You serve as an internal thought leader and strategic catalyst, coordinating resources across the bank and partnering with state and local agencies, developers, housing advocates, and capital providers to unlock additional housing supply. You combine research and analytical rigor with executive-level influence to shepherd opportunities, elevate coverage fluency and delivery, support impact reporting, and help lead a housing Steering Committee aligned to broader firm priorities.

Job Responsibilities:

• Work with senior leaders and policy teams to shape and activate a multi-year strategy to increase housing supply aligned to business objectives and impact goals.
• Define priority themes (e.g., policy, capital innovation, partnerships, market selection) and translate them into an executable roadmap.
• Provide clear points of view and recommendations to senior leadership to drive timely decisions and unblock obstacles.
• Drive disciplined advocacy and structured problem-solving with coverage teams and product leaders across single family, multifamily, and master-planned / multidisciplinary opportunities.
• Review internal and external research and data on market-level housing affordability constraints, including demographic and market trends and the evolving policy landscape.
• Co-develop executive-ready strategy papers/whitepapers, memos, and board-level materials in partnership with Corporate Responsibility (CR) policy and research teams, ensuring recommendations are specific, implementable, measurable, and decision-oriented.
• Identify scalable financing and structuring innovations and codify "what works" so it can be replicated across markets.
• Evaluate and highlight federal, state, and local programs and partnership opportunities that can stimulate housing creation and preservation.
• Facilitate senior relationships with housing authorities, municipal/state stakeholders, economic development organizations, nonprofit housing groups, and industry associations in partnership with coverage teams.
• Coordinate across key business lines, run working groups with clear charters, and ensure best practices, playbooks, and market insights translate into pipeline and execution.
• Structure, run, and follow through on Steering Committee (SteerCo) agendas, pre-reads, decisions, action tracking, and briefing materials for senior executives and high-stakes external meetings.

Required Qualifications, Capabilities and Skills

• Bring 10+ years of relevant experience in commercial real estate, affordable housing, multifamily finance, public policy, strategy consulting, investment banking, government affairs, or related fields.

• Demonstrate deep understanding of multifamily housing finance and capital markets and translate market/policy dynamics into bankable opportunities.

• Lead complex cross-functional initiatives and drive decisions with senior stakeholders in high-visibility environments.

• Write and synthesize complex topics into executive-ready materials and deliver compelling presentations.

• Operate autonomously with sound judgment, high standards, and comfort navigating ambiguity.

• Build effective partnerships across internal lines of business and external public- and private-sector stakeholders.

• Develop and manage governance structures, workplans, measurement frameworks, and action tracking to ensure consistent execution.

Preferred Qualifications, Capabilities and Skills

• Bring direct experience with affordable housing finance, LIHTC, workforce housing initiatives, or municipal/state housing programs.
• Demonstrate familiarity with CDFI partnerships, Community Development Banking, and public-private partnership models.
• Apply experience engaging Agency stakeholders (e.g., Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac) and/or FHA/HUD programs and processes.
• Operate across the housing ecosystem end-to-end and influence diverse stakeholders to align on outcomes.
• Lead people and/or build teams, operating cadence, and structured workplans in matrixed environments.
• Identify and evaluate innovative capital solutions and risk-sharing structures that can scale nationally.
• Support executive forums through strong briefing, agenda-setting, and follow-through for senior leadership committees.