Kemena Brooks is the Director of Development for The Community Builders Midwest development office. She oversees the regions city of Chicago development pipeline from initial concept through project stabilization. That pipeline includes over 2,000 units of affordable and mixed income housing, and hundreds of thousands of commercial and neighborhood amenity spaces. Kemena’s responsibilities range from project planning and finance structuring through design, construction, and lease-up. Current focus includes the development of two former public housing sites into multi-phase, mixed-income, mixed-use communities. Kemena is also leading redevelopment efforts in West Side neighborhoods including the development of a 50,000 square foot health and wellness center.  Additionally, Kemena closed on a $5 million impact investment loan to support TCB’s efforts to deliver homeownership and retail development for local businesses in two South Side Chicago neighborhoods.

Prior to joining TCB, Kemena spent several years developing affordable and mixed-income housing for Laurel Street, a mission-driven for-profit firm based in Charlotte, NC.  At Laurel Street, she contributed to the development of more than 500 mixed-income and affordable units in Virginia and North Carolina.

Kemena is a 2022 graduate of Loyola University Chicago’s Baumhart Scholars MBA program. She holds a Master of Urban Design from the University of North Carolina Charlotte and a Bachelor of Science with a major in interior architecture from the University of North Carolina Greensboro.  Kemena is a 2023 Crain’s Business Chicago 40 under 40 recipient and a 2022-2023 Urban Land Institute Women Leadership Fellow.