Ahkilah Johnson

As a trained architect with 20+ years of experience working in real estate, Ahkilah uses her expertise to deliver high-quality, on-time, and on-budget facilities for charter schools. At the beginning of her career, Ahkilah gained experience in a wide range of real estate functions – including site diligence/acquisition, land-use changes, new construction, renovation projects, lease negotiation, and more – in her roles at Clark Construction Group and Cherokee Investment Partners, a private equity firm.    

In 2009, Ahkilah transitioned to the charter school sector when she joined Uncommon Schools as Senior Director of Real Estate & Facilities. Ahkilah also currently serves as the Senior Managing Director of Real Estate Development for KIPP NYC, where she is responsible for the development of approximately 400k square feet of Class A school facilities in the Bronx, totaling over $500M in development. In this role, Ahkilah led her team to the on-time, on-budget completion of five school facilities launched during the COVID pandemic and led the creation of a unique bespoke insurance product to attract and retain MWBE sub-contractors as vendors. Ahkilah previously led the real estate division of Uncommon Schools, where she managed a portfolio of 2.4 million square feet of school facilities, delivered on time and on budget more than 300K square feet of new construction and 480K square feet of major renovations. While at Uncommon, Ahkilah successfully implemented an in-house facility management system that resulted in approximately $750K of annual savings for one region in the Uncommon network of schools. Ahkilah also served clients as part of the Two9Three Consulting team. She was previously Chief of Staff at Cherokee Partners (private equity) and held various roles at Clark Construction Group.

Ahkilah serves as a real estate lead in a variety of capacities, including project management, space planning, building audits and capital investment strategies, budgeting, and vendor selection and management, among others.

She holds a B. Arch from Howard University, MSc, Real Estate Development from Columbia University and her Executive Nonprofit Leadership Certificate from Columbia Business School. ​