Carol Coletta
President and CEO of the Memphis River Parks Partnership

Carol Coletta is a national figure in the revitalization of cities and public spaces. Since 2017, she has served as president and CEO of the Memphis River Parks Partnership, a public-private partnership responsible for five miles of public property along the Mississippi River in downtown Memphis, Tennessee. Its mission is to work with and for the people of Memphis to trigger the transformative power of the river.

In September, 2023, the City of Memphis and the partnership celebrated the opening of Tom Lee Park, a newly transformed 31-acre riverfront park running along the Mississippi River. Designed by Studio Gang and SCAPE, with substantial community engagement and concept planning, the park is the centerpiece of the city’s riverfront and a national model for welcoming and ecologically restorative urban parks.

Carol came to the partnership from The Kresge Foundation where she was a senior fellow in the foundation’s American Cities Practice. She led a $50+ million collaboration of national and local foundations, local nonprofits and governments to Reimagine the Civic Commons in five cities. It is the first comprehensive demonstration of how a connected set of civic assets – a civic commons – can yield increased and more widely share prosperity for cities and neighborhoods.

She was formerly vice president of Community and National Initiatives for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation where she managed a portfolio of more than $60 million annually in grants and a team of 18 in 26 communities to drive success in cities, including the inquiry into the value of economic integration on America’s cities and how to achieve it.

Carol led the two-year start-up of ArtPlace, a unique public-private collaboration to accelerate creative placemaking in communities across the U.S. and was president and CEO of CEOs for Cities for seven years. Previously, she served as executive director of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, a partnership of the National Endowment for the Arts, U.S. Conference of Mayors and American Architectural Foundation. She also ran a Memphis-based public affairs consulting firm, Coletta & Company, where she served business, foundations, nonprofits and government on the broadest range of civic issues.