Amir Farokhi is a lifelong Atlantan who has spent his career solving problems. From leading local and national social enterprises to helping companies make an impact beyond profits, Amir has built a reputation as a thoughtful, pragmatic leader who relies upon coalition-building and collaboration to get things done.
Elected to the Atlanta City Council in 2017 to represent six intown Atlanta neighborhoods (Downtown, Midtown, Old Fourth Ward, Inman Park, Poncey-Highland, and Candler Park), Amir is finishing his first four-year term as an elected official. He was the first Iranian-American elected to public office in the American South. Amir currently serves as Chair of the City Council's Zoning Committee and on the Transportation and Public Safety committees.
Amir's activism started in college, when he helped push a successful effort to get his institution to recognize MLK Jr. Day as an official university holiday. After practicing law with an international law firm for five years, he co-founded the non-partisan, statewide nonprofit GeorgiaForward to bring business, government and civil society together to tackle the state's most pressing issues. While running GeorgiaForward, he realized the untapped potential in Georgia's young professionals and launched the Young Gamechangers program which brings together the state's brightest young minds to solve long-standing challenges in Georgia cities. Under the GeorgiaForward banner, Amir also led a coalition of organizations to publish the state's first-ever Civic Health Index.
Amir then served as Chief Operating Officer of College Advising Corps ("CAC"), a $30M+ national education non-profit which works to increase the number of low-income students who apply to and attend college. In this role, he worked at the intersection of business, higher education, and philanthropy, collaborating to address one of America's biggest barriers to socioeconomic mobility for low-income families: access to a college education.
Today, Amir works at CARE where he leads the organization's Corporate Council, a roundtable of CARE's corporate partners working toward achieving gender equality.
Throughout his career, he has been committed to community engagement. From bicycle and transit advocacy to education to strengthening support for Atlanta's firefighters, Amir has worked to make Atlanta safer, livable, and more vibrant.
Amir was born to educators. His late mother, a native of Augusta and eighth-generation Georgian, spent nearly 25 years in the administration of Georgia State University's College of Education. His father immigrated to the United States from Iran in the 1960s and received a Ph.D. from Atlanta University before a 40+ year career as a professor at Morris Brown College.
Amir lives in the Old Fourth Ward with his wife, Julie Okada, their dog Roxie, and two cats, Buggy and Penny. He is a graduate of The Galloway School, Duke University, and Duke University School of Law.
Select Recognition And Activities
Georgia's Most Influential - Notable Georgian, Georgia Trend Magazine, 2011-2013, 2019
40 Under 40, Georgia Trend Magazine, 2013
Leadership Atlanta, 2013
LEAD Atlanta, 2006
Civil Society Fellowship, The Aspen Institute + ADL
Fmr. Term Member, Council on Foreign Relations
Marshall Memorial Fellow, German Marshall Fund of the United States, 2011
Fellow, Truman National Security Project