Carol Redmond Naughton is the Chief Executive Officer of Purpose Built Communities, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving racial equity, economic mobility and health outcomes in communities across the country.

Purpose Built works to improve neighborhoods so that they become platforms that support families working to improve their lives. Purpose Built Communities works with local leaders to help them plan, implement and sustain holistic neighborhood revitalization initiatives that create healthy neighborhoods that include broad, deep and permanent pathways to prosperity for low income families.

For seven years leading up to the creation of Purpose Built Communities, she served as the Executive Director of the East Lake Foundation, the innovative nonprofit organization that serves as the “community quarterback organization” for the East Lake neighborhood. Prior to joining the East Lake Foundation, Carol was the General Counsel for Atlanta Housing Authority where she played an instrumental role in the revitalization of traditional public housing communities into economically viable, self-sustaining, mixed-income communities and was a key member of the leadership team that transformed AHA from a failing bureaucracy to a national leader in community development. Prior to joining AHA, Ms. Naughton was engaged in the private practice of law with Sutherland, Asbill and Brennan’s real estate group, where she primarily represented real estate developers, lenders and asset managers.

Ms. Naughton is a graduate of the Emory University School of Law and Colgate University. Ms. Naughton serves as the on the Board of the Directors of the Low Income Investment Fund, and serves on several national advisory boards including Build Healthy Places Network and Fifth Third Bank’s National Community Advisory Forum.