CHRYSTAL KORNEGAY

MassHousing’s Board of Directors voted to appoint Chrystal Kornegay as the agency’s executive director. Kornegay, who currently serves the Baker-Polito administration as undersecretary of Housing and Community Development, will assume the executive director role following a brief transition period.

Kornegay succeeds Tom Lyons, MassHousing’s managing director of government affairs and communications, who has been serving as acting executive director, and Tim Sullivan, who previously stepped down as executive director to pursue a private sector employment opportunity.

“I am incredibly excited for the opportunity to lead MassHousing, and continue working collaboratively with the Baker-Polito administration in this new capacity,” said Kornegay. “MassHousing’s mission, of confronting the housing challenges facing the Commonwealth to improve the lives of its people, has been my life’s work.”

Kornegay currently serves as undersecretary of Housing and Community Development, a position she has held since January 2015. As undersecretary, Kornegay has overseen a significant expansion of state support for the production and preservation of affordable housing, and has led efforts to rehouse homeless families, achieving a 96 percent reduction in the number of families sheltered in hotels and motels. She played a leadership role in crafting the Baker-Polito administration’s Housing Choice Initiative, a coordinated effort by the Commonwealth to add 135,000 new housing units by the year 2025. She launched an ambitious effort to redevelop state-aided public housing properties into mixed-income communities. And she has spearheaded a multi-pronged initiative to build economic prosperity, by expanding educational and job training opportunities to residents of public housing and reducing cliff effects for low-income households

receiving housing benefits.

Prior to joining the Baker-Polito administration, Kornegay served as president and chief executive officer of the community development corporation Urban Edge, where she led a turnaround in the firm’s finances, while growing its housing portfolio, and tackling complex development projects, such as the redevelopment of Jackson Square in Boston.