Founder and Chief Equity OfficerPartnership for Southern Equity
Nathaniel Smith is the founder and Chief Equity Officer of the Atlanta-based Partnership for Southern Equity. A child of Southern Freedom Movement Activists, Smith works to advance racial equity through an equity agenda, which advances just outcomes that are sensitive to the needs and circumstances of communities – erasing barriers to success and creating the conditions that enable just and fair inclusion into a society in which all people can participate, prosper and reach their full potential.
Under Smith’s leadership, PSE created the South’s first equity-mapping tool, the Metro Atlanta Equity Atlas and led a coalition of diverse stakeholders to support a $13 million transit referendum that expanded MARTA into a new county for the first time in 45 years. Through its COVID-19 Rapid Relief Fund, PSE distributed more than $500,000 to more than 30 organizations because of the initial investment of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta and the United Way of Greater Atlanta.
Smith’s