Shelton Haynes, 48, has held several leadership roles throughout his professional career. For the last 15-plus years, he has been in senior leadership roles, from the NYC Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and was later president of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC). Now he has founded and is CEO of his own consulting firm, MEH Advisory. These types of firms are responsible for helping organizations of all sizes build structure and become successful.
Haynes says he has always been mission-focused, a quality developed growing up while watching both of his parents. Being raised in Hempstead on Long Island, Haynes knew early that he wanted to support his community in whatever way he could.
“Everything I have done has been centered around helping people, and I get that from my mother,” Haynes said. The initials MEH of his firm are named after his mother, Mary Ellen Haynes, a former school principal.
After graduating from Hampton University in 2000, Haynes became a social worker with the NYS Health Department, then a supervisor at the New York City Department of Housing Preservation & Development (HPD), was a housing manager and later a chief operating officer with Affiliated Resources Group in Atlanta for a few years before coming back to New York in 2016 where he was, first, COO of RIOC and then president and chief operating officer by 2021.
Haynes is proud of his accomplishments at RIOC, including improving infrastructure projects and establishing the first state-approved youth program for local families. He received several awards during his tenure, including the 2024 Rudy W. Powell Memorial Community Service Award and the Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award twice.
Haynes views everything he has experienced as a lesson that allowed him to grow.
“Each experience I’ve taken as a lesson and blessing. I’ve never looked at something like ‘why me?’” Haynes said. “Each experience has led me to a different and even better chapter.”
As running the island was similar to a business, Haynes says he learned a lot in his tenure about operations from all angles, whether it be legal, financial, or capital projects. In this, he was working with consulting firms constantly to assist his leadership. This allowed him to start his firm in 2025.
“I dealt with a lot of politicians, congress members, senators … consulting was just about the work, and I enjoyed it,” Haynes said about his choice to turn from government to consulting.
Haynes’ firm is able to provide consulting for all types of organizations on how to scale and be sustained, whether it be project management, legal advice, setting up infrastructure, how to save money, providing training, and more. He says it is made up of an accomplished set of advisors and is proud to have as diverse a team, both in expertise and ethnicity.
On the final day of Black History Month, Hayes attended a Black Men’s Brunch in Harlem, where he connected with several professional friends of his. He says this network of professional Black men supporting each other has been a resource he has been able to lean on over the years.
Since he was in his 20s, Haynes served as a basketball coach and mentor for youth through programs like the Harlem Children Society. Though he is not coaching anymore, he still mentors young people at different events, often connecting them with internships and other opportunities.
Haynes passed down these values of striving to reach your full potential despite challenges to his four sons, with his oldest now attending Howard University.
Haynes says at this stage in his life and career, he is all about giving back and providing support where it is needed, including to smaller Black-owned businesses.
“I get a chance to help my community, I get a chance to show through my actions that Black-owned businesses can be successful … and showing the quality of what we do is amazing,” Haynes said.