CLEVELAND — It’s a new chapter for the Cleveland Foundation. With its new headquarters primed to open between University Circle and Downtown Cleveland, it’s elected a brand-new president and CEO.
Lillian Kuri will be the first woman to hold that position full-time in the foundation’s 109-year history. Kuri sat down with News 5 anchor Rob Powers Tuesday to talk about her vision for Cleveland’s future.
“People love Cleveland,” she said. “Once you come here and discover it, there’s nowhere else you’d rather be.”
Kuri has shown her love for Cleveland; she’s been at the foundation for 15 years, playing a key role in the revitalization of Greater University Circle as her first project and more recently in the design of the new foundation headquarters at Euclid Avenue and East 66th Street.
The foundation has already started talking about how to ensure they’re investing in the surrounding Hough and Central neighborhoods without gentrifying them.
“I think the measure of success for this project is going to be in 10 or 15 years. Have we made the lives of residents better?” she said.
Across the street from the new HQ, a Midtown Collaboration Center is under construction. It’ll be a hub for businesses and bring everything from health research to software training to the community. Constance Hill Johnson is the Chairperson for the foundation’s Board of Directors. She told Powers every business in the center was carefully selected.
“These are businesses that are focused on serving the community, and we were very intentional about who would join us there,” she said. While the decision to give Kuri the top position was unanimous among board members based on her unparalleled qualifications and vision, Johnson said the significance of this path forward wasn’t lost on her.
“There will be two women; one the daughter of immigrants, one an African-American from the city of Cleveland, from Glenville, leading the Cleveland Foundation,” she said. “Who would have thought that was a possibility?”
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