Chief Executive Officer

Habitat International; Lexington (KY); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Habitat for Humanity of Fayette and Franklin Counties seeks a visionary Chief Executive Officer to guide a complex nonprofit operating across housing construction, mortgage origination, retail, and social services. You will set strategic direction, sequence steps, and ensure accountability while expanding impact.

The role requires steering through financial restructuring, securing capital, and leading a diverse team of experts with strong donor engagement and community advocacy.

Qualifications

• Financial acumen to lead a sizable, multi-line nonprofit
• Proven track record in advancing initiatives from plan to completion
• Experience with capital grants, fundraising, and donor cultivation
• Creative thinking about sustainability in affordable housing or related fields
• Leading and collaborating with long-tenured staff and senior teams
• Clear, respectful communication with staff, board, funders, and community

Responsibilities

• Stabilize the financial position and establish a sustainable operating model
• Meet commitments on Marquard Field development
• Increase home production and secure land pipeline

Skills

Financial leadership

Strategic planning

Fundraising

Stakeholder engagement

Team leadership

Change management

Executive communication

Job description

For forty years Lexington Habitat for Humanity, now Habitat for Humanity of Fayette and Franklin Counties, has built and repaired homes in Lexington, serving more than 500 households through homeownership, critical home repair, a ReStore and neighborhood programs. Recent production has averaged seven to nine new homes and ten to twelve critical home repairs a year. The Board is seeking a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to scale the organization from a charity that builds and repairs homes into an affordable housing developer with a charitable mission.

Committed initiatives are already underway. Approximately eighteen lots are coming to the organization at no land cost through the Marquard Field development. The organization is seeking Community Housing Development Organization (CHDO) designation, which could open a federal funding stream currently unavailable to it.

In September 2026, the organization announced its expansion into Franklin County and adopted the name Habitat for Humanity of Fayette and Franklin Counties. Franklin County carries the fourth-largest housing supply gap in Kentucky, a shortage of 4,457 units, with 37 percent of renters cost-burdened. Fayette County's shortage exceeds 22,000 units. The expansion was announced alongside the Mayor of Frankfort and the Franklin County Deputy Judge-Executive, and increases access to land and funding sources. Program delivery is phasing in.

Habitat Fayette and Franklin Counties is simultaneously a social service agency, a residential construction operation, a mortgage originator and servicer, a retailer, and an affordable housing developer. Forty-seven staff. Seven department leaders report to the chief executive officer, most with more than a decade of tenure.

Specific experience managing every one of those operations is not expected. The board is looking for an executive who can lead an organization more complex than any single background prepares a person for: someone who sets direction with the team, sequences it into executable steps, holds the organization accountable for those steps and delivers.

The organization does not currently employ a Finance Director or CFO. A controller manages the books, and the Board treasurer, a CPA, is closely engaged. The organization intends to add a senior finance leader. Sequencing relative to this appointment is under discussion, and the incoming chief executive officer will be part of that decision and will carry more of the financial load until the hire is made.

Candid about where this sits. The organization has run an operating deficit for three consecutive years. For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025, it held roughly $9 million in assets against $3.4 million of revenue, and the goal is a balanced budget in fiscal 2028. The Board discusses the financial position in full early in the process.

Staff retention is a defining strength. Department leaders average more than a decade with the organization, and the average ReStore associate has been in place about five years.

Responsibilities

In the first twenty-four months

• Stabilize the financial position and remove going-concern language from the audit, including a sustainable operating model and a senior finance hire
• Meet the organization’s commitments on Marquard Field
• Increase annual home production to ten, advance CHDO designation, and secure the land pipeline

Qualifications

• Financial acumen sufficient to lead a sizable and diverse organization with multiple lines of business
• A demonstrated record of taking initiatives that are underway and carrying them through to completion, with the project management discipline to keep them moving
• Experience working with local, state and federal partners to secure and manage capital and grant funds, together with fundraising and donor cultivation experience
• Creative and innovative thinking about sustainability in affordable housing or an adjacent field
• Experience leading and collaborating with an established team of subject matter experts, including change management with long-tenured staff
• Clear, consistent, respectful communication with staff, board, funders and the broader community, including public advocacy for affordable housing

Preferred, not required
The Board reviewed the conventional screens for this role and removed the ones that would exclude strong candidates without improving the hire.

• Habitat for Humanity experience
• A nonprofit career. The board will evaluate for-profit and nonprofit backgrounds against the same criteria, and is actively interested in operators from outside the sector
• Construction expertise. Working literacy is sufficient. The organization employs the technical experts
• Knowledge of affordable housing, real estate development, or community-based housing programs
• Candidates meeting most of these criteria, with genuine strength in several that matter to this organization, are encouraged to apply