Lorraine Cochran-Johnson
Chief Executive Officer, Dekalb County
Lorraine works hard for the people of DeKalb. As a Commissioner, Lorraine has saved taxpayers over $92 million using mandatory audit and oversaw the allocation of more than$ 1.4 billion toward infrastructure since 2021.
She has allocated over $6 million in discretionary funding to nonprofit and community-based organizations and is the founder of the Education Marketing Botanicals Agriculture and Recreation Center (E.M.B.A.R.C.) Youth Farm, a fifty-eight-acre campus devoted to youth entrepreneurship, enrichment, healthy eating, and community.
Lorraine is responsible for Operation HOPE at Stonecrest, a partnership that has resulted in over 3,000 DeKalb residents receiving financial dignity coaching, credit repair, and home ownership counseling. The program has awarded over $22 million in down-payment assistance and home loans to first-time home buyers in DeKalb County.
Lorraine is the author of the Video Surveillance System Ordinance requiring gas and service stations to have high-definition video surveillance to reduce crime. She is the author of the Boxed Store Ordinance that stopped the proliferation of dollar stores across DeKalb through mandatory distance requirements. The Box Store Ordinance has been used as model legislation in nine states.
Lorraine spent two decades at Creative Loafing Newspaper. An entrepreneur, Lorraine founded Salons Unlimited Magazine, a publication that started with S,000 print issues in Atlanta and grew to a S6,000 circulation in 31 U.S. cities in three years before being sold in 2010. The Atlanta Daily World is Georgia’s oldest African American newspaper. It was the African American newspaper to have a full-time White House correspondent.
In 2015, Lorraine joined Real Times Media as the General Manager of the Atlanta Daily World Newspaper and Associate Publisher of Who’s Who In Black Atlanta. She was the VP of Business Development for RTM Properties -AtlantaDailyWorld.com and Atlanta Tribune: The Magazine, before resigning to pursue public service full time.
Lorraine is the author of Government Reimagined, an enlightening look at the dynamic and changing components of modern government by a former corporate executive turned politician.
Lorraine merges her empirical knowledge, and practical experiences in corporate America and government to create best practices for service-based organizations.
Lorraine lays the foundation for elected officials to think differently and shifts the paradigm from traditional thought and partisan politics to government as a corporate entity that masters service delivery and adopts best practices to survive the normal probability distribution of the bell curve. Lorraine frequently speaks on topics including leadership, modern government, affordable housing, and the unique role and qualities of women in leadership.
Lorraine became the first African American woman elected CEO of DeKalb County Georgia in the runoff election held June 18, 2024.