Our Team

We are a passionate team of urbanists, innovators, and citizen-centered designers.

  • Founder + CEO

    Alex Johnston is the founder and CEO of Cities Reimagined, a human-centered design firm that uses a combination of data and the lived experience of residents to help civic leaders diagnose and solve urban problems. Her background in business gives her a knack for developing solutions with a triple bottom line: systems that benefit people, planet, and profit. Alex’s work is focused on addressing systemic challenges in mid-size cities that prevent economic growth, social mobility, and human connection.

    Since founding Cities Reimagined in 2013, Alex has worked with corporate philanthropy, local government, and global NGOs to design citizen-centered systems that build trust and facilitate connection between people living in urban cities. Alex’s work in Detroit was awarded the HUD Secretary’s Award for Public-Philanthropic Partnerships.

    Alex holds a Masters in Cities with Honors from the London School of Economics, an MBA, and a certificate in Creative Cities from NYU. She is also a graduate of the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia. Alex is also a Senior Fellow for the Institute of Social Innovation at Babson College where she collaborates with social entrepreneurs to address social, economic, and environmental challenges in cities.

  • Partner

    Josh McManus is known for problem-solving and turning big ideas into pragmatic action. He brings the best of both for-profit and nonprofit solutions to help businesses thrive while building a better world. His projects range from reorganizing a $7 billion family of 150 companies to help stop the population loss in Detroit, to stimulating an entrepreneurial ecosystem that helped transform Chattanooga into one of the country’s most innovative and fastest-growing cities.

    He’s worked with the C-suites of many of the country’s most significant businesses and nonprofits, including Ford Motor Company, Quicken Loans, United Way, and the Knight Foundation. This year, he’s helped Ford Motor Company through his partnership with Civic with strategies, content, and cultural interventions to navigate the transitions to autonomous, electric and connected vehicles. Last year, he helped Ford drive positive change with a transformative announcement of $1 billion of real estate and strategic investment in their home city of Detroit. Josh previously served as Quicken Loans and Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert Chief Operating Officer to create a “for morethan-profit” approach to organizing and accelerating his portfolio of businesses, real estate, and sports holdings.

    Prior to his work in Detroit, Josh co-founded CreateHere, an entrepreneurship and cultural change organization that sparked over 10,000 new enterprises worldwide, and championed the world’s largest community visioning process, with over 26,000 surveys collected. Josh began his career by problem-solving with private foundations and public institutions in post-industrial cities first in Atlanta and eventually in Chattanooga. Along the way, he earned business degrees from Georgia Tech and the University of Tennessee. Josh’s work and ideas have been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, The Economist, Entrepreneur, GOOD, The Huffington Post and even Garden and Gun. He’s been recognized nationally as a Next American Vanguard and internationally as a Marshall Memorial Fellow.

  • Chief of Staff

    Mari joins Cities Reimagined with more than 10 years of experience in administrative support and project management in the banking industry. A master multitasker and lover of details, she plays a central role in strategizing, coordinating, and ensuring the seamless execution of projects and initiatives across the organization.

  • Finance Director

    Courtney has worked with Cities Reimagined since 2020, and previously served as a senior accountant in the insurance industry where she performed the accounting over a $75B investment portfolio. She is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University where majored in accounting and graduated Cum Laude.

  • Project Manager

    Meg comes to Cities Reimagined after more than ten years in Institutional and Brand Marketing and is thrilled to be joining the team in Detroit. She is a storyteller, performer, and problem-solver with a passion for people (and her rescue dog Fran). Meg leads project implementation for the Cities team.

  • Lead Service Designer

    Victoria brings her award-winning service design expertise to Cities Reimagined from both the consulting and start-up worlds. She excels at facilitating creative workshops, distilling complex problems into digestible ones, and putting herself in the shoes of the end user. At heart, Victoria is a people-person, a problem-solver, and a life long learner.