BOSTON — Richard Davey, president of New York City Transit, is one of two finalists to become CEO of the Massachusetts Port Authority, that agency has announced.
The New York website Gothamist was among news outlets reporting earlier this week that Davey was leaving for the Massport job, although Davey denied the report.
The Boston Globe reports Davey and Eulois Cleckley, CEO of the transportation department for Florida’s Miami-Dade County, were presented as the finalists for the Massport job at a board meeting on Thursday. The board aims to choose its new CEO next week to replace Lisa Wieland, who departed in November to become New England president of power company National Grid.
Davey oversees the division of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in charge of the New York subway and bus systems. He has been in the position since May 2022 [see “Davey, former Massachusetts transportation secretary, to head New York City Transit,” Trains News Wire, March 24, 2022]. His departure would mean the MTA is looking for a fifth person for the job in little more than four years.
The New York Daily News reports Davey said at a Tuesday news conference that information he is leaving is “not true. … I am lucky enough to have this job which I enjoy very much. I do get calls from time to time, because I’ve got a great team that makes me look good.”
Gothamist cited MTA board member John Samuelsen, president of Transport Workers Union International, and another MTA board member who requested anonymity as confirming the move, originally reported by the Boston Globe’s Frank Phillips on X.
Davey is a Massachusetts native with has strong Boston-area professional ties. He served as general manager of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in 2010-2011; served as secretary and CEO of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation from 2011-2014; headed Boston 2024, the effort to bring that year’s Summer Olympics to the city; and worked as a partner and director at the Boston Consulting Group, according to his MTA biography.
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