Anthony Foxx currently serves as the director of CPL. Foxx is the Emma Bloomberg Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School and previously served as the 17th U.S. Secretary of Transportation under President
Barack Obama.
Past Directors David Gergen, former presidential advisor who served during the administrations of
Richard Nixon,
Gerald Ford,
Ronald Reagan, and
Bill Clinton, served as CPL director from 2000 to 2018. Gergen was succeeded by American diplomat
Wendy R. Sherman. Sherman directed CPL until early 2021, when she was appointed
United States Deputy Secretary of State under President
Joe Biden. Sherman was succeeded by Hannah Riley Bowles, the Roy E. Larsen Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Management at HKS and Co-Director of the HKS Women and Public Policy program (WAPPP). In February 2022, former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick joined Bowles as a Co-Director of CPL. Patrick and Bowles served together as co-directors until 2024. Previous directors also include
Max Bazerman and
Ron Heifetz. ==Faculty and staff==