Joe Neri is a visiting fellow in the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute and CEO of IFF, one of the nation’s leading community development financial institutions. He leads a staff of more than 150 professionals working across finance, real estate development, policy, research, and program management. Neri joined IFF in 1997 and established IFF’s real estate consulting and research businesses, led IFF’s expansion to 10 states, and created Home First, a housing development corporation for persons with disabilities.

With more than 35 years of comprehensive community development experience, Neri has broad, direct experience in nonprofit finance and management; community facility finance, planning, and development; affordable housing; community small business lending; and child care and charter school facility design, finance, and systems planning. He has written for Nonprofit Quarterly, ShelterForce, and ImpactAlpha.

He serves on the community advisory committee for U.S. Bank and chairs the CDFI/FHLB working group. He is past chair of the board and treasurer for Allies for Community Business and previously served on the community advisory committee of the St. Louis Federal Reserve.

Before joining IFF, Neri was a cofounder and associate director of The Resurrection Project, a nationally recognized Chicago community development corporation.

Neri has held adjunct instructor positions at the graduate planning schools of the University of Iowa and the University of Illinois Chicago. He holds a bachelor’s degree in urban affairs from Grinnell College and a master’s degree in city planning from the University of California, Berkeley.