Robin Hughes Named CEO of HPN

The Board of Directors of the Housing Partnership Network (HPN) unanimously approved the appointment of Robin Hughes as the organization’s next President & CEO, effective July 1, 2022. HPN is an award-winning national business collaborative of 100+ leading affordable housing and community development member organizations as well as an Aeris-rated CDFI and a national HUD-certified housing counseling intermediary.

Highly regarded as an industry leader at the local, state, and federal level, Ms. Hughes is currently President and CEO of Abode Communities, a leading affordable housing nonprofit based in California and member of HPN’s network since 2010. She has also served on HPN’s Board of Directors for eleven years, 5 of them as Board Chair, positions she relinquished effective immediately.

Ms. Hughes comes to the CEO role with extensive experience as an organizational, community, and thought leader in affordable housing production, preservation, policy, and program delivery. She is also widely recognized for her vision to increase investments in low-income communities of color and her commitment to advancing social equity and social justice through delivery of comprehensive resident services and community facilities that benefit entire neighborhoods.

Under her leadership, Abode Communities became a nationally-recognized affordable housing developer, a premier provider of environmentally-sustainable housing in California, and a frontrunner in making the high-cost Southern California market affordable to low-income working families. Projects range from supportive housing for individuals and families experiencing homelessness, workforce housing for teachers, housing for seniors and low-income individuals and families, and joint ventures with for-profit developers on mixed-use, market-rate and civic use developments.

The selection is the result of a search undertaken by HPN’s Board of Directors following Tom Bledsoe’s announcement last November of his plan to retire after 25 years at the helm. With the assistance of Simkin Search and a five-member Board Search committee, nearly 90 CVs were received and reviewed prior to the Board making its final selection.

HPN’s board of directors is comprised of leaders of its member organizations. The search committee consisted of Patricia Belden (EVP Real Estate Development of The Community Builders, Ellis Carr (President and CEO of Capital Impact Partners), Priya Jayachandran (President of National Housing Trust), Kevin Nowak (Executive Director of CHN Housing Partners), and Larry Swanson (CEO of ACTION-Housing, Inc.).

Ms. Hughes currently serves on the Boards of California Community Reinvestment Corporation (CCRC) and The Community Development Trust (CDT), and is Vice Chair of the California Housing Consortium. Previously, Hughes was chair of the Affordable Housing Advisory Council for the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, a member of the JPMorgan Chase Community Advisory Board of Los Angeles, and has served on the board of directors for organizations such as Southern California Association of Nonprofit Housing, Low Income Investment Fund, and Mercy Housing California. She has also held positions in the private and public sectors including The Richmond Group of Companies, Citibank, the Community Development Commission of the County of Los Angeles, and the Office of the Mayor of the City of Los Angeles.

Ms. Hughes has received numerous honors and recognition for her contributions. She has been profiled as a top influential woman by Affordable Housing Finance magazine, featured as a “Champion of Affordable Housing” on the cover of National Real Estate Investor (now Wealth Management Real Estate) magazine, won Black Business Association’s Executive Leadership Award, named “Outstanding Nonprofit Director” by Women in Business, named number one in the Commercial Observer’s “LA Power list” of top real estate leaders in Los Angeles, and showcased as a “Greatest Person of the Day” by The Huffington Post for her role in bringing affordable homes to those in need.

Ms. Hughes received her master’s and bachelor’s degrees in public administration from the University of Southern California, and certification from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government Executive Program.

HPN hopes to safely celebrate this leadership transition in-person at the next biannual meeting of its membership on June 8-10, 2022, scheduled to take place in Pittsburgh, PA. Mr. Bledsoe will continue to lead HPN until July 1^st when Ms. Hughes will become the new CEO.