Frank Fernandez

Frank Fernandez joined the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta in August 2020, where he leads one of America’s top 20 largest community foundations. The united power of his prior experience and the anchor institution’s 70 plus years of regional leadership combine as a force for good, championing equity and shared prosperity for all who call the Atlanta region home.

Frank builds upon the Foundation’s exceptional resources, leveraging a full range of assets – human, reputational and financial – to pursue equity of opportunity through servant leadership, sustainable change making in both systems and place-based work as well as through inspired giving that ultimately fulfills the Foundation’s mission to lead the region toward equity and shared prosperity for all. To that end, during the pandemic and in partnership with the United Way of Greater Atlanta, he led programming to raise and deploy $30M in grants to the nonprofit front lines.

Prior to joining the Foundation, he served for six years as the Senior Vice President for The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, where he led transformational revitalization of Atlanta’s Westside while simultaneously directing Blank’s community development, global giving, health access and social justice initiatives.

A recognized leader on affordable housing, transportation and economic development, Fernandez’ 15 years in management positions in Texas prior to joining the Blank Foundation included eight years leading Green Doors, an Austin nonprofit devoted to transforming lives and neighborhoods and five years as Deputy Director of PeopleFund, a community development financial institution. His work has been honored with the 2005 Austin Livable City Vision Award, the 2008 Austin Under 40 Nonprofit Leadership Award and the 2012 Ernst and Young Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award. He currently serves as a member of the Mission Investors Exchange Board of Directors. Frank is an ADL and The Aspen Institute Civil Society Fellow.

A son of Cuban immigrants, Frank is a Florida native and holds a B.A. in philosophy from Harvard University and an M.P.A. from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. After graduation, he worked on Wall Street as a public sector financial analyst for Salomon Smith Barney, structuring over $1 billion in financial transactions, before pursuing his graduate degree.