In February 2021, the Urban Land Institute (ULI) announced that Sonia Huntley has been appointed as the Institute’s senior vice president for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).  Huntley is an association industry veteran with nearly 30 years membership engagement, marketing, fundraising and customer service experience.   She was formerly ULI’s vice president for Global Customer Service and in her new role reports directly to ULI Americas president Gwyneth Jones Coté.  As senior vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion, Huntley is responsible for heightening ULI’s overall focus on DEI, including significantly increasing the representation of under-represented groups within ULI’s membership, staff and leadership. Huntley will also expand ULI’s content and learning opportunities to help tackle structural systemic racism within the real estate industry.

In 2020, Huntley was co-leader of ULI’s DEI initiative, where she managed the efforts of the DEI staff taskforce of more than 70 ULI team members. She served on the ULI Member/Staff DEI Council, a working group whose output has positioned ULI to more fully and expediently address inequities in commercial real estate. Huntley has also been accepted into the Summer 2021 cohort of Georgetown University’s DEI Executive Certificate Program. The much sought-after program is specifically designed for senior professionals with diversity and talent management responsibilities in the government, non-profit, or private sectors.

Before working at ULI, Huntley worked for the Division of University Relations at the University of Maryland, where she was Director of Membership and Marketing for the Alumni Association. At the university she developed strategies leading to increased retention rates and executed the launch of the associations’ lifetime member recognition wall.  During her tenure at the university, she also worked for the Annual Fund where she served as the Director of Emerging Constituent Philanthropy responsible for DEI focused philanthropic engagement.

Huntley is a native Washingtonian who resides in Maryland, where she actively serves in her church as a ministry leader and teacher, in the local community on her local Board of Elections and Education Committee, and as a high school mentor. She received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland and an MBA from the University of Maryland Global Campus.

For more information on ULI’s DEI Initiative, please visit https://americas.uli.org/dei/ or  email [email protected].