Job Description

Jacksonville’s historic urban core neighborhoods are home to vibrant communities and rich civic history, and the city is making a bold commitment to ensure its commercial corridors reflect that strength. The City of Jacksonville and LIFT JAX will partner with FUSE to develop and launch place-based revitalization strategies for the urban commercial corridors linked by the emerging Emerald Trail, advancing the mayor’s priority of equitable neighborhood investment. The partnership with LIFT JAX will build upon the experiences and successes that LIFT JAX has had working with the Eastside neighborhood. The objective of the partnership is to share and spread those successes and experiences throughout neighborhoods across Jacksonville. Over two years, the FUSE Executive Fellow will deliver corridor-specific strategic plans, strengthen cross-sector partnerships, and catalyze public, private, and philanthropic investment that supports existing businesses and residents, building lasting economic vitality without displacement.

Fellowship Dates: October 26, 2026 – October 20, 2028

Salary: Executive Fellows are FUSE employees and receive an annual salary of $95,000. Fellows can also access various health, dental, and vision insurance benefits. This amount is not representative of market-rate salaries for the experienced professionals in our program but is intended as compensation for a year of public service.

ABOUT THE FUSE EXECUTIVE FELLOWSHIP

FUSE is a national nonprofit dedicated to increasing the capacity of local governments to work more effectively for communities. We embed private sector executives in city and county agencies to lead projects that improve public services and accelerate systems change. Since 2012, FUSE has led over 400 projects in 58 governments across 26 states, impacting a total population equivalent to 1 in 10 Americans.

When designing each fellowship project, FUSE works closely with government partners and community stakeholders to define a scope of work that will achieve substantive progress toward high-priority local needs. Projects address today’s most pressing challenges and opportunities, including affordable housing, economic mobility, climate resilience, public safety, infrastructure, technology, and more.

FUSE conducts a full executive search for each individual project to ensure that the selected candidate has at least 15 years of professional experience, the required competencies for the role, and deep connections to the community being served.

Executive Fellows are embedded in government agencies working with senior leaders for at least one year of full-time work. Prospective responsibilities may include thorough data analytics and research, developing enhanced operations and financial models, building change management and strategic planning processes, and/or building broad coalitions to support project implementation efforts. Executive Fellows are data-driven and results-oriented and able to effectively manage complex projects. They build strong relationships with a broad array of stakeholders, foster alignment within and across various layers of government, and build partnerships between governments and communities.

Throughout the fellowships, Executive Fellows receive training, coaching, and professional support to help achieve their project goals.

PROJECT BACKGROUND

Jacksonville is a city of distinct and storied neighborhoods. Its urban core, encompassing communities such as Historic Eastside, Springfield, Avondale, Riverside, Brooklyn, San Marco, Durkeeville, LaVilla, and Five Points, represents the city’s original fabric, home to generations of residents and small business owners who have shaped Jacksonville’s culture and identity. Running through most of these neighborhoods are commercial corridors: mile-long strips of business and commerce that serve as each community’s economic backbone. Some of these corridors have faced decades of disinvestment since consolidation, limiting access to economic opportunity and leaving significant potential unrealized. At the same time, major public infrastructure investment, including the development of the Emerald Trail, a multi-neighborhood connector trail inspired by models like Atlanta’s BeltLine, presents a generational opportunity to catalyze corridor revitalization in ways that strengthen, rather than displace, the communities already rooted there.

The current mayor’s administration has made equitable neighborhood investment a defining priority, with a sustained commitment to directing resources across all of Jacksonville’s communities, particularly those that have historically received less attention. The City has developed tools to support neighborhood commercial activity, including facade improvement programs and infrastructure investment mechanisms, and has signaled strong support for deepening this work along the Emerald Trail corridor. LIFT JAX has been an active partner in this effort, bringing deep relationships with neighborhood stakeholders, experience in community-rooted economic development, and a track record of mobilizing private sector partners in support of place-based goals. Together, the City and LIFT JAX have laid the groundwork for a coordinated, community entered approach to commercial corridor revitalization.

This FUSE Executive Fellowship represents a timely opportunity to bring dedicated, senior-level capacity to this work at a pivotal moment. As the Emerald Trail takes shape and neighborhood investment momentum grows, the City of Jacksonville and LIFT JAX are ready to move from vision to implementation, developing corridor-specific plans that are data-informed, community-rooted, and designed to catalyze lasting economic vitality for the people who call these neighborhoods home.

PROJECT APPROACH

During the first 90 days of the fellowship, the FUSE Executive Fellow will conduct a comprehensive discovery phase to develop a deep understanding of Jacksonville’s urban commercial corridor landscape. The fellow will lead a structured listening tour with key stakeholders, including the Mayor’s Office, city department heads in public works and neighborhoods, community leaders, local business owners and business associations, community residents, council members representing corridor districts, and proximate private sector and philanthropic partners. The fellow will assess the current condition of priority corridors, reviewing existing capital improvement plans, public investment data, physical infrastructure assessments, and prior planning efforts such as existing Business Improvement Plans. The fellow will also evaluate small business access to city resources, such as facade improvement programs, and identify structural or practical barriers that may limit participation. Research into best practices from peer cities with comparable corridor revitalization and trail-adjacent development strategies will inform this analysis. Based on discovery findings, the fellow will present refined project concepts and a proposed strategy prioritizing specific corridors and approaches for City and LIFT JAX review and approval.

Following the discovery phase, the fellow will shift to developing and implementing tailored commercial corridor revitalization strategies. This work will include producing corridor-specific plans that assess each corridor’s assets, needs, and opportunities, and identify concrete recommendations for public infrastructure investment, streetscaping, small-business support, and strategies to attract and stabilize commercial activity. A central focus will be on developing actionable financing strategies that leverage the full range of available public, private, and philanthropic resources, including city capital investments, private-sector partnerships with proximate employers and anchor institutions, and philanthropic funding, to support corridor improvements and small-business capacity.

The fellow will work to ensure that each corridor plan reflects the priorities of the business owners and residents who know it best, building relationships directly in neighborhoods and creating authentic community ownership of the strategies. The fellow will also work closely with LIFT JAX throughout this phase, leveraging the organization’s community relationships, private sector networks, and place-based expertise to strengthen both the plans and their prospects for implementation. In parallel, the fellow will support early engagement with city council members representing corridor districts to build the political buy-in that will be essential for long-term follow-through.

By the end of Year One, the City of Jacksonville will have a set of data-informed, community-rooted corridor revitalization plans for priority urban commercial corridors, along with a clear financing and implementation roadmap. The fellow, the city, and LIFT JAX will collaborate during Year One to define specific goals, timelines, and a detailed scope for Year Two based on the plans produced and the momentum generated. The ultimate two-year goal is to move each priority corridor from planning into active implementation, with investments mobilized, partnerships activated, and community-owned strategies that can sustain revitalization well beyond the fellowship period. To support long-term continuity, the fellow will work to embed strategies within the city’s existing departmental structures, secure council and community champion relationships, and design plans with sufficient specificity to be carried forward effectively through transitions in elected leadership or city staff.

The FUSE Executive Fellow will be embedded within the City of Jacksonville’s Mayor’s Office, reporting directly to the Project Supervisor and receiving strategic guidance from the Executive Sponsor. The fellow will also maintain a formal “dotted line” relationship with LIFT JAX, with a regular communication cadence to ensure that project activities remain grounded in community priorities, aligned with place-based partnership commitments, and supported by the deep neighborhood relationships and private sector networks that LIFT JAX brings to this work.

EXPECTED DELIVERABLES

By Fall 2027, the FUSE Executive Fellow is expected to have produced the following:

• Urban Corridor Conditions and Investment Assessment – Completed a thorough analysis of priority commercial corridors, including an inventory of existing public investment, physical infrastructure conditions, small business needs, and current access to city resources such as facade improvement programs, establishing a clear baseline that informs corridor-specific strategies.
• Corridor-Specific Revitalization Plans – Developed tailored, community-rooted revitalization plans for each priority corridor, including concrete recommendations for public infrastructure improvements, business support strategies, and near-term opportunities for activation along the Emerald Trail, with input from local business owners, residents, and council members.
• Multi-Source Financing and Investment Strategy – Produced a financing roadmap for each corridor that identifies and sequences public, private, and philanthropic investment opportunities — including proximate private sector partnerships, giving the city and community partners a concrete plan for mobilizing the resources needed to advance revitalization.
• Cross-Sector Partnership and Stakeholder Engagement Framework – Established relationships and collaboration structures with city departments, council members, business associations, anchor institutions, and philanthropic partners to support coordinated implementation of corridor strategies and sustain momentum beyond the fellowship.
• Implementation Roadmap with Phased Milestones – Delivered a phased, five-to-ten-year implementation roadmap for each corridor, organized around achievable near-term milestones and longer-term goals, designed with enough specificity to be carried forward effectively across changes in city leadership or administration.

By Fall 2028, the Fellow is expected to have produced the following high-level deliverables:

• Active Implementation of Priority Corridor Strategies – Moved priority corridors from planning into active implementation, with public investments underway, private sector and philanthropic partners engaged, and community-owned revitalization strategies generating visible progress toward economic vitality and small business growth.
• Replicable Place-Based Corridor Revitalization Model – Documented a replicable framework for community-centered commercial corridor revitalization, including community engagement approaches, financing strategies, and public-private partnership models, that the City of Jacksonville can apply to additional corridors and that the City of Jacksonville and LIFT JAX can share as a national model.

KEY STAKEHOLDERS

• Executive Sponsor – Michael Weinstein, Chief Administrative Officer, City of Jacksonville
• Project Supervisor – Carla Miller, Advisor to the Mayor, City of Jacksonville
• Place-Based Partnership Liaison - Travis Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer, LIFT JAX

QUALIFICATIONS

• 15+ years of progressively responsible experience in organizational transformation and change management, from practitioner to enterprise-level leadership.
• Synthesizes complex information into clear and concise recommendations and action-oriented implementation plans.
• Develops and effectively implements both strategic and operational project management plans.
• Generates innovative, data-driven, and result-oriented solutions to complex challenges.
• Respond quickly to changing ideas, responsibilities, expectations, trends, strategies, and other processes.
• Communicates effectively verbally and in writing and excels in active listening and conversing.
• Fosters collaboration across multiple constituencies to support more effective decision-making.
• Establishes and maintains strong relationships with diverse stakeholders, both inside and outside of government, particularly community-based relationships.
• Embraces differing viewpoints and implements strategies to find common ground. Demonstrates confidence and professional diplomacy while effectively interacting with individuals at all levels of various organizations.

FUSE is an equal opportunity employer. We encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply for this position.