HHHunt will appoint longtime finance executive Ann Kelly as chief executive officer effective July 1, 2027, as part of a planned leadership transition at the family-owned homebuilding and real estate company, the firm announced.
Kelly, currently chief financial officer, will succeed Buck Hunt, who has held the CEO role since 2013. Hunt will remain chairman and will shift his focus to long-term strategy and leading a new hospitality venture for the company, according to the announcement.
As part of the transition, Steve Brant, senior vice president of finance and treasury, will become chief financial officer on July 1, 2027. Chief Operations Officer Steve Fritz will continue in his current role. Kelly, Brant and Fritz will comprise the HHHunt executive leadership team.
The move puts a 20-plus-year company veteran with deep homebuilding and corporate finance experience in the top job at a time when private regional builders face pressure to scale, manage capital and navigate a more volatile housing cycle.
Leadership backgrounds
Kelly joined HHHunt in 2001 and spent her first decade as controller for HHHunt Homes, giving her direct exposure to homebuilding operations and construction costs. She later served as vice president of finance and accounting and senior vice president of finance and risk management before stepping up as CFO in 2019, overseeing corporate finance and accounting across HHHunt Homes, HHHunt Communities and HHHunt Abberly Apartments.
Outside the company, Kelly serves on the boards of the Goochland Education Foundation, GoochlandCares and Virginia Tech’s Blackwood School of Real Estate.
Brant joined HHHunt in 2006 as controller for HHHunt Communities. He became vice president of finance and accounting in 2013 and has served as senior vice president of finance and treasury since 2019. He holds an economics degree from Virginia Tech and an MBA from Averett University.
Fritz, COO since 2019, joined HHHunt in 2015 as general manager of HHHunt Homes of Raleigh and was promoted to president of HHHunt Homes in 2017. He has previously held divisional and regional president roles with several of the largest publicly traded homebuilders in the country and holds a civil engineering degree from the University of Maryland.
Continuity at a family-owned builder
Hunt, son of founder Harry H. Hunt III, grew up in the business and has led HHHunt through divestitures, acquisitions and the creation of the company’s current vision, mission, brand promises and values over the past 13 years, the company said. Retaining him as chairman and giving him a mandate to build a new hospitality arm is intended to preserve family oversight while opening a new growth channel.
“Ann and I are aligned on what the future holds for HHHunt. She has a passion for pushing the company forward, challenging the status quo and holding us accountable for the high standards we have always met. I have nothing but confidence in the new executive team’s leadership and they will have my full support in leading HHHunt forward,” Hunt said in the announcement.
Kelly said she is “honored to be entrusted with the CEO role” and intends to build on HHHunt’s 60-year “values-driven success and innovation.”
Why it matters for homebuilders
HHHunt develops, builds, owns and manages communities and homes across Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. For other private builders and master-planned community developers, the succession plan underscores a few key industry themes:
- Finance-led leadership: Elevating a CFO with construction and risk management experience to CEO reflects the growing importance of capital structure, land strategy and balance-sheet discipline in a higher-rate environment.
- Institutionalizing family companies: Keeping the Hunt family in the chairman role while formalizing an executive leadership team mirrors how many multi-market private builders are professionalizing governance without selling to publics or private equity.
- Diversification: The new hospitality venture suggests HHHunt is looking to further diversify income streams beyond for-sale housing and multifamily, a move many regional players are considering as cycles shorten and demand shifts.
For trade partners, lenders and land sellers in the Southeast, the announced 2027 effective date provides a long runway and clear visibility into who will control purchasing, capital allocation and operational decisions at HHHunt’s homebuilding and community platforms.
