Search for next MARTA leader kicks off
The Atlantan leading the search for MARTA’s next general manager and CEO told the transit agency’s board of directors that finding the right leader is critical to the city’s future success.
Zack Deming, a managing director at DSG Global, the executive search firm MARTA has hired, met with the board’s search committee Thursday.
It was the committee’s first public meeting and officially kicks off the process to hire a permanent replacement for Collie Greenwood, who resigned from the transit agency in July amid immigration issues.
Deming said he’s committed to finding the right person.
“As you well know, everybody is really engaged about getting a great result, knowing what MARTA means to the future of the city and to our plans,” Deming said.
Board members have made limited comments about how the search for the leader of one of the country’s largest transit agencies will proceed, and many of their discussions have happened privately.
Thursday’s meeting was rescheduled from September. MARTA did not give any public notice of the earlier meeting as required by the state’s Open Meetings Act, and the board canceled the meeting just before it was set to start after receiving questions about the lack of notice from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Before that, the search committee held four secret meetings that were not publicly advertised and which resulted in naming both an interim leader and an external advisory committee.
During Thursday’s meeting with DSG Global, the committee met for almost 90 minutes, most of which was behind closed doors. After Deming’s introductory remarks, the committee voted to go into executive session to discuss personnel matters privately, which is allowed under the open meetings law.
In public comments, board members have said they’re taking a broad approach with this CEO search.
Greenwood was an internal hire, promoted to the top job after serving first as deputy and then interim chief.
Board Chair Jennifer Ide told the AJC previously that it’s unlikely the next CEO will come from within. Jonathan Hunt, MARTA’s general counsel who was appointed to serve as interim, has said he is not interested in the permanent position, as have other top executives at MARTA.
Ide also said the board isn’t limiting itself to candidates from the transit industry and hired DSG Global — previously known as Diversified Search Group — specifically because of their experience running searches beyond the transportation industry.
“We don’t want to limit ourselves to perhaps the same pool of candidates that might sort of naturally come to mind,” Ide said in August.
The job has not yet been publicly posted. The board has said it hopes to have a permanent leader in place before next summer’s FIFA World Cup games.
The next search committee meeting is Nov. 13 at 2 p.m.
About the Author
Sara Gregory covers transportation for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Previously, she covered local government in DeKalb County. A Charlotte native, she joined the paper in 2023 after working at newspapers in South Carolina and Virginia.
