Our Team
Justin Maxson
Executive Director
Prior to joining BuildUS, Justin Maxson served as a senior advisor at the Amalgamated Foundation, where he worked helping disadvantaged communities access federal resources. Before that, he served in the Biden administration as Deputy Under Secretary for Rural Development at USDA, where he helped manage the only federal agency with the explicit responsibility for rural development. As Deputy Under Secretary for Rural Development, he managed the launch of the Rural Partners Network, contributed to federal rural development policy to address climate change, and worked to make it easier for small towns and rural communities to access federal resources.
Formerly, he served as the chief executive officer of the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation supporting economic and racial justice in the South. Before that, he spent more than a decade as the president of the Mountain Association, a community development financial institution advancing economic and sustainable development opportunities in eastern Kentucky and Central Appalachia. Maxson holds a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of Kentucky, and a master’s in anthropology from Boston University. He lives in Winston-Salem, NC and has two young adult children.
Sameera Fazili
Senior Advisor
Sameera served in the Biden Administration as Deputy Director of the National Economic Council where she advised on community development finance with a focus on manufacturing, innovation, domestic competition, and global supply chains.
In the Obama Administration, she served as a Senior Policy Advisor for the National Economic Council before joining the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta as Director of Engagement for its Community and Economic Development Department. Sameera is an expert on community development financial institutions and international microfinance and previously served as a senior advisor and chief of staff to the Department of Treasury’s Undersecretary for International Affairs.
Kokei Otosi
Strategy Consultant
Kokei has spent years working with cities to design and execute urban development strategies, with a particular focus on climate adaptation and technological innovation. Most recently, Kokei worked as a Senior Consultant at IBM.
Prior to that, while at Van Alen Institute, she managed a critical workstream of a $200M bond program to deliver a series of climate adaptation projects in Greater Miami. At the New York City Economic Development Corporation, she co-managed RISE: NYC, a technology innovation program that brought cutting-edge climate solutions to small businesses impacted by Hurricane Sandy. Kokei holds an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and is a graduate of New York University.
Manu Prakasam
Senior Associate
Manu most recently spent several years on the strategy team at Rivian, where he worked on Rivian’s IPO — which raised nearly $12 billion in financing — to select a site for Rivian’s multi-billion dollar second production plant.
Manu holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley. During college, Manu also led a student-run consulting group focused on environmental and social responsibility.