A team to transform how the MTA operates is beefing up nearly two months after Chief Transformation Officer Anthony McCord was appointed to lead the reform effort.
Improving service and modernizing all aspects of operations is the goal for the Transformation Management Office, which it will accomplish by reducing bureaucracy, streamlining operations and improving service as recommended by third-party consultant Alix Partners for about $4.1 million.
The new crew has experience in transportation and… “transformation,” according to the MTA.
“The MTA has already made huge steps towards modernization and the Transformation Management Office is in a prime position to leverage this momentum to turn the Authority into a more efficient, better performing, more customer-focused organization,” McCord said. “This diverse group of leaders brings a wealth of organizational insight, specialized skills, and talent to our efforts and I’m excited to have them on the job.”
New to the MTA are Wael Hibri as Deputy Chief Transformation Officer, Zeb Voss as Chief of Staff, Eamonn Foley as Special Counsel, Mildred Chua Head of Program Delivery, Michael Moran as Head of Program Delivery and Jaibala Patel as Chief Financial Officer.
Voss, according to the MTA, has worked in complex industrial environments across the world for companies such as Canon and Alula, a management consulting firm. Meanwhile the remaining staffers have been sourced from within the MTA.
But the Transformation Plan from Alix Partners has not come without some scrutiny from the public who criticized projections that 2,700 employees could lose their jobs in the agency.
The Transformation Officer is different from many leaders in the MTA in that McCord and his staff will answer to the board instead of being accountable to Pat Foye, who serves as both CEO and chairman of the board.
Some of the issues with the MTA mentioned in the Transformation Plan are authority-wide policies that limit the autonomy of individual agencies to operation optimally or the way the Enterprise Resource System is implemented inconsistently across by different entities.
