Stephen Goldsmith

Stephen Goldsmith is the Derek Bok Professor of the Practice of Urban Policy and the Director of the Innovations in Government Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

He currently directs Data-Smart City Solutions, a project to highlight local government efforts to use new technologies that connect breakthroughs in the use of big data analytics with community input to reshape the relationship between government and citizens. He also directs the Project on Municipal Innovation, a platform for cities’ mayoral senior staff to share and adapt best practices and innovative policy ideas that increase efficiency and improve the lives of citizens, as well as other projects, including the Civic Analytics Network and Operational Excellence in Government.

He previously served as Deputy Mayor of New York and Mayor of Indianapolis, where he earned a reputation as one of the country’s leaders in public-private partnerships, competition, and privatization. Stephen was also the chief domestic policy adviser to the George W. Bush campaign in 2000, the Chair of the Corporation for National and Community Service, and the district attorney for Marion County, Indiana from 1979 to 1990. He has written, The Power of Social Innovation; Governing by Network: the New Shape of the Public Sector; Putting Faith in Neighborhoods: Making Cities Work through Grassroots Citizenship; The Twenty-First Century City: Resurrecting Urban America; and, most recently, The Responsive City: Engaging Communities Through Data-Smart Governance.