Moha Thakur joined National Housing Trust in 2018 and currently serves as the Public Policy & Mid-Atlantic Initiatives Manager.

Moha leads NHT’s Mid-Atlantic Initiative; building expertise, developing innovative affordable housing policies, piloting programs, and demonstrating impact in the District of Columbia and the surrounding capital region. She       also focuses on state and local public policy initiatives across all 50 states, working with elected officials, government employees, and advocates from around the country. Her work focuses on modernizing affordable housing finance programs such as the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, expanding housing supply, and protecting and supporting residents, including promoting racial equity in housing outcomes. Through NHT’s advisory services, Moha provides tailored policy solutions to public, private, and nonprofit partners based on best practices from around the country.

Moha graduated with a Master of Public Policy degree from Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Commerce from the Australian National University.

Ruby Harris is Senior Director of Capital Solutions and Partnerships with Enterprise Community Partners, a national organization focused on the production and preservation of affordable housing. In her role, she supports the local affordable housing ecosystem, including developer capacity, creative capital deployment and policy initiatives. Ruby’s career has been centered in community-based real estate strategies, with experience ranging from nonprofit management, program and product design, project management, public policy, finance and grant-making. Prior to Enterprise, Ruby served as Co-Director of Lending at Community Vision (a Northern CA regional CDFI) and created the Small Sites Program, an acquisition and rehab program, at the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development in San Francisco. Ruby holds a BA from the University of California, Berkeley in Ethnic Studies and City Planning.

Andrea Brennan is CEO and president of the Greater Minnesota Housing Fund, a mission-driven community development financial institution that raises low-cost, high-impact affordable housing investment capital to deploy throughout Minnesota. Originally from St. Cloud, MN, Andrea brings experience working on housing policy and development in the urban core, as well as suburban communities and rural townships. From 2015 to 2023, Andrea led housing development and policy initiatives for the City of Minneapolis, most recently overseeing its Community Planning and Economic Development department and the Minneapolis Community Development Agency. Previously, Brennan led community development for the Dakota County Community Development Agency. She has served on several prominent housing finance, policy and development boards including the Heading Home Hennepin Executive Committee, the Family Housing Fund, the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority, and the Minnesota Housing Partnership. She is a graduate of the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota and the University of San Diego.

Brian Allan Jackson, also known as AJ, is the President of LEO Impact Capital, a subsidiary of JBG SMITH (NYSE:JBGS). LEO is an investment management platform that utilizes an Impact Framework to generate financial returns for investors and improve residents’ financial well-being through investment in workforce housing. AJ has extensive experience in creating nationally recognized workforce housing programs and policies and has provided guidance to local governments, public institutions, and national trade associations on mixed-income housing policy. Prior to his role at LEO, AJ spent nearly 15 years as a developer and led over one billion
dollars of double and triple bottom line public-private partnerships.

AJ is a Trustee of the Urban Land Institute, where he serves on the Advisory Board of ULI’s Randall Lewis Center for Sustainability in Real Estate and chaired the 10 Principles for Embedding Racial Equity in Real Estate Development working group. Additionally, AJ serves on the Workforce Housing Committee of NMHC, the Fannie Mar Affordable Housing Advisory Council, and the Board of Directors of Up For Growth, a national organization dedicated increasing the availability and affordability of housing through research and evidence-based policy. He earned a B.A. with honors from the University of Alabama and an M.B.A. with distinction from Harvard Business
School.

Erika Poethig is the Executive Vice President for Strategy and Planning at the Civic Committee and Commercial Club of Chicago. In consultation with Civic Committee and Commercial Club members and senior executive leadership, she leads the development and execution of a comprehensive strategic framework and action plan for the Civic Committee and Commercial Club reflecting their distinctive roles in strengthening Chicago’s and Illinois’ economic future. Working with colleagues and key partners, she develops strategies and helps to advance initiatives on immediate and emerging issues and challenges – education, public safety, transportation, economic development, inclusive innovation, business diversity, and state/city finances – that bolster economic opportunity and social mobility in Chicago, in an effort to make our region a better place for everyone to live, work and do business.

From 2021 – 2023, Poethig was the Special Assistant to the President for Housing and Urban Policy in the White House Domestic Policy Council. In this capacity, she led interagency policy development on the housing and community and economic development components of President Biden’s Build Back Better Agenda. Under her leadership, the Biden-Harris Administration created results-oriented action plans and new policies to prevent evictions and foreclosures, increase the supply of rental and for-sale housing, improve housing affordability for low- and moderate-income Americans, address racial and ethnic bias in the home appraisal process, reduce unsheltered homelessness and ensure federal infrastructure investments result in more equitable development.

Prior to joining the Biden-Harris administration she served as vice president and chief innovation officer at the Urban Institute, where she created and led the Research to Action Lab, an innovation hub serving decisionmakers and creative thinkers eager to effect social change.

Before joining Urban, Poethig was acting assistant secretary for policy, development, and research at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. During her tenure in the Obama administration, she was also deputy assistant secretary for policy development and was a leading architect of the White House Council for Strong Cities and Strong Communities. As associate director for housing at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, she developed grantmaking strategies focused on rental housing policy and research and research on how housing matters. In the 1990s, she was assistant commissioner for policy, resource, and program development at the City of Chicago’s Department of Housing and developed Mayor Richard Daley’s campaign to combat predatory lending, prevent foreclosures, and stabilize communities.

Earlier in her career, she was associate project director of the Metropolis Project of the Commercial Club of Chicago, which produced the Metropolis 2020 policy and action agenda to address major issues faced by metropolitan Chicago.

Poethig serves on the Harris Council, the Advisory Committee for the J. Ronald Terwilliger Center for Housing Policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, and the Low Income Investment Fund’s board of directors.

She was a Phi Beta Kappa member at the College of Wooster, a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Vienna, and has an MA with honors in public policy from the University of Chicago. In 2022, she received a Career Achievement Award from the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.

Stacie Young is President and CEO of Community Investment Corporation (CIC), a 50 year-old nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI). CIC provides financing to neighborhood owner-operators – mostly small businesses – for the acquisition, rehabilitation, and preservation of unsubsidized affordable rental housing in Chicago area neighborhoods. In this capacity, CIC has financed over $1.7 billion to preserve 68,000 affordable units since 1984. CIC also supports strong buildings and neighborhoods with additional innovative programming, including Property Management Training and strategic property interventions to drive responsible building ownership and management. CIC is also home to the Preservation Compact, a 15 year-old regional policy collaborative that champions affordable rental preservation.

Young also served as Assistant to the Mayor for Affordability in the City of Chicago’s Office of the Mayor, and as Director of Research and Policy for the Chicago Department of Housing. She currently serves on the boards of the National Association of Affordable Housing Lenders, Impact for Equity, and Housing Choice Partners.