Alexander Russell is helping bring needed affordable housing to Southern California as executive vice president of Many Mansions, a nonprofit developer, property manager, and service provider.
Overseeing the organization’s housing division, he’s helped Many Mansions increase the number of its housing units by more than 30%, expand its geographic footprint, and serve new populations. His team is working on seven affordable housing projects at various stages of development, totaling over 400 new construction units, which would nearly double the existing portfolio, plus the syndication or resyndication of nearly 300 more units.
Working in affordable housing is a far different path than the one Russell set out on. After earning a bachelor’s degree in biological sciences, he worked as a research specialist for Dole Food Co. and a clinical manufacturing associate at Amgen.
While finishing his MBA degree, he signed on as a volunteer tutor in Many Mansions’ after-school program. “I loved the mission and the fact that they were helping transform people’s lives,” says Russell, whose mother was a teacher.
The nonprofit gets its name from a passage in the Bible: “In my father’s house are many mansions.”
The organization offered him an internship, and he has been a vital part of it since 2006. “What I love is being able to see a piece of land or a property that’s underutilized and doing something amazing with it,” he says. “To see residents move in and how happy they are, there’s nothing better.”
Russell, 39, is also contributing to the industry in other significant ways. He’s president of the boards of the Southern California Association of Nonprofit Housing and the Ventura County Housing Trust Fund and serves on the board of governors for the California Housing Consortium. He has two daughters.
