Monique King-Viehland

Member, Board of Directors

Monique King-Viehland is a coach, consultant and disruptor who holds space for Black and BIPOC women, transgender and/or gender expansive folks to show up differently in the inequitable + indifferent spaces that proclaim to create space for them. Through her consulting work, she partners with institutions and organizations who truly want to ground their work in, and frame their work around, equity and justice, to move beyond rhetoric, false narratives, and aspirations to create the change they are seeking both within their organizations and for the people they serve. A powerful speaker, Monique moves her audiences to acknowledge the oppressive systems they exist in and adhere to, and show up in – and for – justice, both in and out of their workplace. She is highly regarded as an expert on racial equity, homelessness, housing justice and affordable housing issues and she has held numerous leadership positions in the field over the last twenty+ years. Before launching her own coaching and consulting firm, Zithande, LLC., Monique was Executive Director in the PolicyCenter at JPMorgan Chase where she led the firm’s efforts to build a more affordable and equitable housing market. Prior to joining the PolicyCenter, she was an Associate Vice President in the Metropolitan Housing & Communities Policy Center where she was a member of the senior leadership team for the largest policy center at Urban and led the development of new bodies of work on racial equity and housing justice, including securing $2.6 million in new funding for the housing justice work. As a former practitioner and policymaker, she also led and informed research aimed at amplifying Urban’s impact by connecting with and translating what policymakers needed on the ground to drive change. Monique previously served as Executive Director of the Los Angeles County Development Authority where she oversaw 580 employees and a budget of approximately $600 million. She was the first woman and African American to take the helm of the 40-year-old agency. She led the agency through significant transformation, including the merger of the Community Development Commission and Housing Authority into one unified agency to augment cross-agency thinking and client service, increase organizational effectiveness and reposition the agency as a forward-thinking, industry leader in the provision of housing, community, and economic development. During her tenure, she also enhanced the LACDA’s efforts to fight the homelessness and affordability crises, including a ten-fold increase in the number of affordable and supportive units funded, increasing project based rental voucher commitments by more than 100% while also providing housing and housing assistance to hundreds of thousands annually. In 2019, she was recognized as a LA Power Woman by Bisnow. Monique has more than twenty years of experience in housing, community, and economic development. She was a member of the LAHSA Ad Hoc Committee on Black People Experiencing Homelessness and a member of the Policy Advisory Committee for the California Roadmap HOME 2030 initiative. She is also on the Steering Committee for the Housing Solutions Lab at New York University. In late 2020, Monique served as a member of the U.S. Housing & Urban Development (HUD) Agency Review Team for the Biden-Harris Transition Team. She graduated with honors from Smith College and has a Master’s in Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University. She currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland with her husband, Brian Viehland and her two children, Sage and Zora.