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Adam K. Thiel was appointed by Mayor Cherelle L. Parker to serve as the City of Philadelphia’s managing director, effective January 1, 2024. The managing director is the City’s chief operating officer (COO) and a principal member of the mayor’s cabinet.
From 2016 to 2024, Managing Director Thiel was the uniformed fire commissioner for the Philadelphia Fire Department (PFD), with a concurrent appointment as a deputy managing director, and also served as the Philadelphia Office of Emergency Management (OEM) director from 2019 to 2022. During his 33-year career, across five states, Thiel has worked in government (local, state, and federal), the private sector, and not-for-profit organizations; before coming to Philadelphia, he was a deputy secretary of public safety and homeland security for the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Adam is an Eisenhower USA fellow, an Aspen Institute health innovation fellow, and a Leadership Philadelphia alumnus. A lifelong learner, Thiel has attended the University of Pennsylvania, the London School of Economics and Political Science, Arizona State University, George Mason University, the University of Maryland Global Campus, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; he is an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University and George Mason University.
In addition to public service, Adam has co-founded two successful consulting practices advising a wide range of clients on crisis leadership, risk management, organizational development, data science, and strategy. He chaired the Institute for Diversity and Inclusion in Emergency Management (I-DIEM) Advisory Board, is a former chair of the National Fire Academy Board of Visitors, a former Certified Emergency Manager® (CEM), and currently serves on multiple non-profit boards and committees. He has appeared many times on local newscasts, along with interviews on: CNN’s The Situation Room, PBS Newshour, the BBC, and NBC Nightly News.
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