Team

Gyata is the Co-Chair, Co-Founder, and Treasurer of The Revitalize Foundation. He concurrently serves as the Co-Chair and Co-CEO of Revitalize Communities, Inc., an affiliated development entity to the foundation.  He is also is the Founder and CEO of Ridge Strategy Group, LLC, a Chicago based public affairs and business development firm with over 20 years of experience specializing in government relations and procurement, business development, lobbying, strategic planning, reputation management, community relations, airport concessions and public relations.

Gyata has assisted clients on commercial real estate projects for years and now is ready to develop his own projects to help improve neighborhoods across Chicago. His commitment to Chicago’s 77 communities is born out of his appreciation and love for the character and history of these communities. When he was born his parents taught at Malcolm X College on the near westside and lived in South Shore. Gyata was raised in suburban Evanston and remained a car or redline train ride away from friends and family who lived in the city. When he came back to Chicago after graduating from law school he moved to Kenwood. Then after Gyata’s family began growing they lived in the South Loop and Rogers Park. Most of his public and private sector work has been dedicated to working in and improving neighborhoods all across the city. Gyata’s work and access to Chicago’s neighborhoods has also informed him of the imbalances across town. Chicago is a wonderful city, but redlining, segregation and detrimental gentrification has created a tale of two cities. Gyata is on a mission to address those inequities. He wants people living in Auburn Gresham and Austin to experience similar quality food, retail and housing resources in their neighborhoods as people living in Andersonville and Albany Park. More than anything else, he’s tired of waiting for somebody else to come and do it. The realization is that we are the people we are waiting for. Gyata has been fortunate enough to find a partner who shares his passion for improving neighborhoods, and together they are ready to put Revitalize Communities into action along with the partnership of The Revitalize Foundation working in unity.

In 2020 Gyata was accepted into the inaugural Yield Learning Network for emerging developers. Yield Chicago, created by LISC Chicago and ULI Chicago to address the lack of diversity in commercial real estate development, is a cohort program that seeks to build capacity of up-and-coming developers of color through networking and access to capital. The focus for Yield Chicago is about building community wealth in Chicago’s south and west side neighborhoods through developing neighborhood based commercial real estate projects, including retail, office space, restaurants, recreational facilities and mixed-use development.

Gyata has a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from Hampton University and a Juris Doctor degree from the Howard University School of Law. Very active in his community, Gyata participates with a number of community-based organizations and non-profit boards, including Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Incorporated’s The Dreamer Project Foundation and Paul W. Cain Scholarship Fund, along with the South Suburban PADS organization which has a mission of preventing and ending homelessness. Gyata now resides in Chicago’s south suburbs with his wife and their two daughters, Layla and Morgan.