Anthony Foxx

Anthony Foxx is the Emma Bloomberg Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership. He previously served as the 17th U.S. Secretary of Transportation where he led the agency’s effort to advance new transportation technologies, promote public private partnerships, and address past inequities in transportation decision-making using executive authority. Among his initiatives at the Department of Transportation (DOT) were releasing the world’s first national guidance on integrating driverless vehicles into the transportation system, successfully advocating for long-term transportation funding on a bipartisan basis, launching the agency’s first Smart City Challenge, advancing commercial uses of unmanned aircraft systems, starting the Build America Center to advance public-private partnerships in U.S. infrastructure and updating departmental guidance under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for the first time in 40 years. Under his leadership, transportation fairness became a requirement for discretionary grant-making, and, having deployed more than $30 billion in grants over his tenure, new examples of more equitable, context-sensitive transportation projects in urban and rural areas are still being planned or are under construction today. Other initiatives to promote greater fairness included a national design challenge known as Every Place Counts and a national summit of ordinary Americans to share best practices on impacting the public input process in local and state transportation decision-making. Prior to his tenure at the U.S. Department of Transportation, Anthony served as Mayor of Charlotte, the 54th and city’s youngest in the history of the city. In that role, Foxx drove passage of the most significant transportation investments in the city’s history, increased job growth, reformed the workforce development system, and led the city to a record low crime rate, all spurring Charlotte’s emergence from the Great Recession. Since departing government in 2017, he has most recently served as Chief Policy Officer at Lyft and as a member of the company’s Executive Leadership Team. Foxx has appeared as a commentator on CNN, the CBS Morning Show, Fox Business, MSNBC, and other networks and has published pieces in The Washington Post, Newsweek, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, and the Charlotte Observer among others. In addition to his duties at the Kennedy School, Anthony will chair the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Advisory Committee on Transportation Equity.