Keona Cowan of Invest Detroit
and Her “Village” Works to Rebuild Communities One Neighborhood at a Time By Gina Gallovich
As a college student, Keona Cowan’s career path was clear: she would study math and become an actuary. Then came an internship at the National Bank of Detroit, and she was hooked. She changed her major to accounting and started with NBD, later Chase, specializing in real estate. Her career was on an upward trajectory and she moved over to what would become to Bank of America, specializing in commercial community development lending. The territory she was responsible for at Bank of America grew exponentially and came to cover the Central United States, including Michigan. While at Bank of America she did a number of transactions with Invest Detroit, including working on developing condominiums in downtown Detroit prior to the recession. But she was on the road a lot, working in a demanding position. With two sets of children, one set grown and/
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or in college, and the other ages 8 and 11, she decided to reprioritize. And three years ago, she joined Invest Detroit as Senior Vice President and later added the title of Chief Lending Officer. She now oversees the lending and credit teams that provide the most critical function of Invest Detroit’s work. As a “gap” lender, Keona and her team work on projects that “Improve lives in communities by providing affordable housing to low- and moderate-income people, something that was not available to them previously.” They use their expertise to take advantage of all available tax credits and federally supported programs while also strategically investing philanthropic and corporate funding. Invest Detroit is also a critical part of the Strategic Neighborhood Fund, a public-private partnership that is now extended into 10 neighborhoods. The aim of the
