Kris Kolluri’s first day as the head of NJ Transit came with some sweeping changes.
Two department heads were let go, one person will switch jobs and five people were hired to oversee various departments or advise Kolluri, including several former NJ Transit staffers, according to a memo Kolluri sent to the agency’s 12,000 employees and exclusively obtained by NorthJersey.com.
He characterized the restructuring as “part of our strategic efforts to align the organizational structure with our business needs and to serve our customers more effectively,” according to the memo.
Richard Schaefer, NJ Transit’s senior vice president of capital programs, and John Gray, the chief of compliance, budget and administration, were fired Thursday morning.
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Here are the six people whose roles changed, or whom Kolluri hired:
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William Brooks is the new senior vice president of capital delivery. He previously worked at the Delaware River Port Authority as the chief engineer and oversaw the capital program.
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Kerry Donovan is the interim chief of Gateway Projects, and will report to Brooks. He previously worked at Amtrak as the senior director of the Gateway program and before that was chief of construction management at NJ Transit.
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Kiran Patel is the interim chief of special projects, and will report to Brooks. He previously worked with Kolluri at the Gateway Development Commission as the deputy chief technical officer and before that was the chief capital project manager at NJ Transit.
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Jignasa Desai-McCleary is the new senior vice president of administration and risk. She most recently served as chief compliance officer and acting chief counsel at the New Jersey Economic Development Authority, and before that was head of procurement for NJ Transit. The role of chief administrative officer was eliminated.
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Gagandeep Singh is a new, part-time senior advisor for real estate who will report directly to Kolluri. He previously worked as head of global real estate for American Express.
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Binu Thomas will no longer be the chief administrative officer and will now be senior advisor for World Cup planning and will report to Kolluri. “It is imperative that NJ Transit has a point person to coordinate the planning for these two important events in addition to other significant events at the Meadowlands complex in 2025 and 2026,” the memo said.
Kris Kolluri’s first day as the head of NJ Transit came with some sweeping changes. Two department heads were let go, one person will switch jobs and five people were hired to oversee various departments or advise Kolluri.
Kolluri, who is expected to lead the agency for the next 13 months during Gov. Phil Murphy’s last year in office, said his priorities are “enhancing the customer experience, including service reliability, communications, system safety and security; strengthening our fiscal outlook and identifying efficiencies; and modernizing our fleet and advancing our capital program.”
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Among the challenges ahead are a potential strike of the agency’s locomotive engineers, planning for the World Cup in 2026, problems with rail reliability amid mechanical breakdowns and Northeast Corridor disruptions on tracks shared with Amtrak, and large capital projects underway, including Portal Bridge and the Gateway program to build a new rail tunnel beneath the Hudson River to Manhattan, restore the exiting century-old tunnel and add train capacity at New York Penn Station.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NJ Transit sees changes on Kris Kolluri’s first day