Ernest Timothy
Convener of Kickoff Clean ATL.
A builder of systems. A solver of problems.
The walk that started a movement.
On the evening of May 23, Ernest Timothy left his apartment at Midtown Union and boarded a train at Arts Center, intending a quiet walk into Downtown Atlanta.
What he found, station after station, was something else. Floors that had not seen a deep clean in years. The sting of urine in the air. Concrete construction barriers cordoning off areas with no signage to explain why. A city preparing to host the world, wearing the wrong face to greet it.
Most people would have looked away. Ernest did not.
He is not in the habit of watching problems multiply.
By the next morning, the framework was on paper. By nightfall, the website was live — built end-to-end, ready to mobilize volunteers and brief partners the moment MARTA and the City of Atlanta give their approval. Within the week, a three-week plan to restore Atlanta's train stations stood complete, waiting on a single signal: clearance from the relevant authorities.
Why this work is in steady hands.
That bias to action is not new. Ernest holds an MBA from Hult International Business School, Boston, and brings more than fifteen years across product development, design systems, and project management. He has served as Country Director for international consulting firms across energy, manufacturing, and management consulting, shaped policy for governments in Africa, and delivered projects across the United Kingdom, Asia, and Africa. He is the founder of Buyant, a C2M demand-aggregation platform, and Principal Partner at Unieboard Limited.
By training, he is a builder of systems. By instinct, a solver of problems. The distance, for him, between noticing and acting is always the shortest possible line.