Bronx River Alliance Announces New Interim Executive Director Javier Lopez

BRONX, NY (06/30/2026) (readMedia)-- Today, the Bronx River Alliance announced that Javier Lopez will serve as the Interim Executive Director of the Bronx River Alliance, bringing more than 20 years of experience in public sector and nonprofit leadership. Lopez will officially step into the new role effective July 6, as the Alliance continues to celebrate 25 years of working to restore and reclaim NYC's last freshwater river as a thriving community resource.

Lopez is the founder of Real Time Response, a consultancy that helps community?based organizations build the governance, staffing, and operational capacity needed to steward assets and stay accountable to the people they serve. In recent years, Lopez has worked closely with the Bronx River Alliance as a consultant, supporting the organization's strategic planning process and helping strengthen its governance and operational capacity. He also served as the Lead consultant for the Hunts Point Economic Mobility Network, overseeing data infrastructure, reporting, and partner coordination to connect Hunts Point residents to local job opportunities.

"I'm honored to step into this role following my good friend and colleague Siddhartha Sánchez at such a pivotal moment for the Bronx River Alliance and I don't take that lightly. For 25 years, this organization has fought to protect the Bronx River and the communities along it, and that work doesn't pause for a transition. I've been working alongside the Alliance since 2025, and I know what this team is capable of. My commitment is to keep that momentum going, so the South Bronx families who depend on this river today – and the generations who will inherit it tomorrow – can count on it being healthier, safer, and more accessible than they found it," said Javier Lopez, Interim Executive Director, Bronx River Alliance.

"Javier brings exactly the steady, experienced hand we need for this transition. He understands how to build organizational capacity while keeping the focus on the communities we serve, and the Board is confident he'll continue to scale the Alliance's programs and partnerships in service of a more vibrant Bronx River. We look forward to welcoming Javier to the team and supporting him as he leads us through this next chapter," said Nilka Martell, Chair, Bronx River Alliance Board of Directors.

As a consultant to We Stay/Nos Quedamos, Lopez provides strategic and operational support to stabilize the organization's 1,400?unit affordable housing portfolio. This includes analyzing financial and performance data, developing asset management tools, advising on property management oversight, facilitating team leadership development, and leveraging public policy opportunities to preserve deeply affordable housing in the South Bronx. Across his career, Lopez has secured more than $45 million in public and philanthropic funding directed toward community outcomes, designed housing stabilization strategies that kept 1,400 South Bronx residents in their homes, and led COVID response work reaching 10,000 families.

Most recently, under former Executive Director Siddhartha Sánchez, the Bronx River Alliance led the Stop the Cross Bronx Expansion Coalition in advocacy against the Cross Bronx expansion. The Board of Directors has approved a transition plan that will run through December 30, 2026. During this period, the Board will lead a search for the organization's next permanent Executive Director, with the goal of securing new permanent leadership by year's end.

Throughout the transition, the Alliance's full slate of programming will continue without interruption. This summer, the Alliance's signature free paddling and planting season is in full swing, getting Bronx residents out on the water and into the Bronx River Foodway. On July 25, the Alliance will host its annual City of Water Day celebration at Starlight Park, featuring an ecology walking tour of the Bronx River Greenway, volunteer-led water quality monitoring, native plant and pollinator activities, and a "Paddle and Pick Up" canoe outing to steward and restore the river. Volunteers continue to turn out for Project Waste cleanups across the season, including monthly sessions servicing the floating trash boon. And on October 1, the Alliance will host its annual Upstream Soirée, its largest fundraising gala of the year, bringing together supporters to celebrate the river's restoration and fund the Alliance's work for the year ahead.

About the Bronx River Alliance: Founded in 2001, the Bronx River Alliance serves as a coordinated voice for the river and works in harmonious partnership to protect, improve, and restore the Bronx River corridor so that it can be a healthy ecological, recreational, educational, and economic resource for the communities through which the river flows. To learn more about its programs, visit www.bronxriver.org.

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