Company: Enterprise Community Partners Inc., Columbia, MD, USA
Entry Submitted By: Group Gordon
Company Description: Enterprise works with partners nationwide to build opportunity, creating and advocating for affordable homes in thriving communities linked to good jobs, schools, health care and transportation. We lend funds, finance development and manage and build affordable housing, shaping new strategies, solutions and policy.
Nomination Category: Individual Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Female Innovator of the Year – Government or Non-Profit –11 to 2,500 Employees

Nomination Title: Terri Ludwig, President and CEO

Describe for the judges the activities and accomplishments of the nominated woman since the beginning of July last year (up to 525 words):

Terri Ludwig should be Female Innovator of the Year not only because she is an innovator, but, crucially, because she fosters innovation in others – changing how the affordable housing and community development industry designs, builds, and preserves communities nationwide.

Her visionary approach combines tools from business, government and philanthropy to build opportunity by creating healthy and affordable homes with access to good jobs, schools, transportation and healthcare.

Since last year, under Terri’s leadership, Enterprise has deployed $2.3 billion to strengthen communities and create more than 16,800 homes; released The Roadmap, which articulates a vision for community development through 2020; coordinated a regional rebuilding response to Hurricane Sandy; and introduced numerous initiatives to accelerate innovation in the development of affordable housing, including FAR ROC and the Lowering the Cost of Housing Competition.

Through The Roadmap, Enterprise is advancing a new way of thinking about housing – as a foundation for opportunity in a healthy community. Following The Roadmap will help the U.S. to address three of its biggest challenges: an economy in the doldrums, climate change, and rising long-term healthcare costs. Terri expects The Roadmap to inspire community development stakeholders to reconceive how the industry can reach beyond current institutional imperatives and funding streams to achieve positive, transformational change for communities nationwide.

The devastating impact of Superstorm Sandy on low-lying communities in greater New York highlighted the need to critically reconsider how cities approach the future development of flood-prone areas. Under Terri’s leadership Enterprise coordinated a regional rebuilding response to Sandy—working with the Obama administration and other key federal, state and local partners to ensure that New York and the surrounding region bounce back stronger and more resilient than ever—that includes:

1) Establishing the Enterprise Housing Resilience Learning Collaborative to improve the crisis preparedness of 12 organizations stewarding more than 13,000 affordable homes;

2) Connecting diverse stakeholders—from property owners to municipal agencies—to the data, policies, and information they need to access federal resources and sharing lessons-learned in Sandy and Katrina;

3) Developing detailed data analysis and maps to provide policymakers a clearer picture of the storm’s impact on low-income communities, particularly renters; and

4) FAR ROC, a design competition that explores best practices and innovative strategies for the planning, design, and construction of resilient and sustainable waterfront developments, the results of which will establish a prototype for long-term development strategies in densely populated seaside communities nationwide.

Recognizing that new solutions are needed to lower building and operating costs in an increasingly resource-constrained environment, Terri and Enterprise launched with The Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation a competition to draw out the most advanced thinking about design, policy, sustainability, and cost-effective building practices. The Lowering the Cost of Housing competition (announced in November 2012, winner named in August 2013) sought to provide a new model for conceiving, locating, financing, building, and sustaining affordable housing. The multitude of cost-lowering approaches and design innovations that will be deployed as a result of the competition, combined with their potential replicability by other affordable housing developers nationwide, are but the latest results of Terri’s visionary, innovative leadership—and all the more reason for naming her Female Innovator of the Year.

Provide a brief biography of the nominated woman (up to 125 words):

Terri Ludwig is president and CEO of Enterprise Community Partners, Inc., chair of the Enterprise Community Investment Board of Directors, chair of the Board of Directors of Enterprise Community Loan Fund and a member of the Enterprise Community Partners Board of Trustees.

Terri was a Presidential appointee to the U.S. Department of the Treasury Advisory Board for Community Development and Financial Institutions. She serves on numerous executive and advisory boards including the New York City Energy Efficiency Corporation Board of Directors, and was selected for the Social Innovation Fellowship for Nonprofit Leaders at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the David Rockefeller Fellows Program. In 2011, Forbes Magazine named Terri to its “Impact 30," a roster of the world's leading social entrepreneurs.