Rebecca Vallance dress, $495, at Peacock Boutique.
Joi McAtee: Executive Director of Equity, Louisville Metro Government
Written by Dawn Anderson, Rocko Jerome and Taylor Riley | Photographed on location at the Frazier History Museum by Kylene White | Styled by Christine Fellingham and Melissa Gagliardi | Hair and makeup by Sarah Allen, Kassandra Cazares Aldana, Kayla Greenwell, Breanna Peters and Michaela Reeves
The field narrowed from over 400 nominations to 89 nominees and finally to the 16 award winners you will meet on the following pages. Representing each of their categories with distinction, your 2023 Most Admired Women bring humility, grace and a great capacity for change to their roles as leaders in our community. We asked each of them to reflect on how they got to this moment, what your votes and this award means to them and where their journeys might take them from here.
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“Every experience I’ve had in my life has prepared me for this moment,” says Joi McAtee, Executive Director of Equity for Louisville Metro Government. She was born and raised here, brought up in Okolona. Her parents built the house she grew up in from the ground up. She had an Evangelical upbringing and attended a predominantly white church and schools until she reached her teens.
“At Central High School, I suddenly wasn’t just one of a few Black faces,” Joi remembers. “It was there that I was introduced to the concept of Black Excellence. Once I was 16 and could drive, I started exploring the West End. My mind wondered: Where was the access to the baseline things a person would need to pursue any achievement? I developed a passion for wanting to see my people thrive and for my city to actualize its potential.”
“I remember sitting on my couch holding my newborn, wondering about the world I had just brought this perfect Black child into… ”
Joi’s resolve was strong, but her goals were deferred. “Most college students think they’ll get a degree and go right to work, but that doesn’t always happen. I found myself doing factory work and driving a forklift around.” Joi eventually took work as a substitute teacher, which led to being at Spalding University, working in admissions, which led to KentuckianaWorks.
“In all these spaces, I was learning about racial disparities,” Joi says. “Reading and getting involved in everything I could community-wise while dealing with personal demons…. It would be years before things finally began to make sense. I could have regrets, but going through those dark times shaped me into the woman I am today. It built the character, endurance, and toughness I needed to carry out my goals.”
As 2020 unfolded as it did, Joi was pregnant and watching real-time live streams of the unrest after the murder of Breonna Taylor. “I remember sitting on my couch holding my newborn, wondering about the world I had just brought this perfect Black child into… There was a moment when I was in the Square I’ll never forget. There were people bringing food, treating injuries, and struggling against contagion and oppression to create a sense of community where it was collapsing. It occurred to me that there was no white horse coming to save us. I decided I wanted to be part of making transformative change from the inside.”
In 2021, as a mother of a young infant, Joi got sober, got divorced, and did the internal work to devote her life to this cause. When she landed her new role with the Office of Equity, she was prepared. “It’s been a magical experience,” she says. “You can see firsthand how people’s lives are impacted by the work that happens out of this office, but it’s hard to put that on an Excel spreadsheet… But if we keep up this righteous fight for justice, equity, and equality, I believe we’ll see our city move in a more hopeful direction.” — Rocko Jerome
