Stephanie Jones
Chief Opportunities Officer
Stephanie Jones was named Senior Counselor to the Secretary and Chief Opportunities Officer for the U.S. Department of Transportation in September 2015. In this role – a first for any federal agency - Stephanie advises Secretary Anthony Foxx on an array of issues and ensures that his priority “Ladders of Opportunity” initiatives are coordinated, advanced and implemented across all levels of DOT, with Department stakeholders, and the public.
Prior to her appointment as Senior Counselor, Stephanie was DOT’s Deputy Chief of Staff. In this position, she was a senior advisor to the Secretary and the Chief of Staff, helping to manage a department with more than 55,000 employees and a $70 billion budget, and handling special projects and priority initiatives for the Secretary.
Stephanie is also serving as the Acting Director of DOT’s Departmental Office of Civil Rights.
Stephanie brings to Secretary Foxx’s leadership team decades of public, private and non-profit sector experience in government, law, education and journalism in a career devoted to “bridging the gaps” that separate people, communities and ideas. Her public affairs and strategic communications firm, Stephanie Jones Strategies, founded in 2010, empowered non-profits and businesses to increase productivity and profitability by improving diversity, expanding communication and engaging with external strategic partners and communities.
Before launching her small business, Stephanie served as the Executive Director of the National Urban League Policy Institute, the Urban League’s research, policy and advocacy arm. She was also Editor-in-Chief of The State of Black America and Opportunity Journal magazine. During her tenure, Stephanie reorganized and re-branded the Policy Institute into a nationally recognized and highly regarded advocacy, policy, research and publication center. She raised the profile of the National Urban League on Capitol Hill and beyond, invigorated the organization’s grassroots advocacy, developed the groundbreaking policy document, The Opportunity Compact, and transformed The State of Black America report and Opportunity Journal magazine into cutting-edge, nationally-distributed publications featuring esteemed authors and contributors, including then-Senator Barack Obama.
From 2002 until 2005, Stephanie served as Chief Judiciary Committee Counsel to Senator John Edwards, advising him on judicial nominations, civil rights and liberties, homeland security, labor, and other issues. She worked closely with the Senator in the development of his anti-poverty, civil rights and urban agendas and was a senior advisor during his 2004 presidential and vice presidential campaigns. Before working for Senator Edwards, Stephanie was Chief of Staff to the late Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones.
From 1994 until 2000, Stephanie was an appointee in the Clinton Administration, serving as Secretary’s Regional Representative in the U.S. Department of Education, where she was the Administration’s education point person for a six-state region. During this time, she also extensively traveled with the President and First Lady, coordinating scores of events and domestic and foreign trips, including the President’s state visits to Africa, Europe, Asia, and Hillary Clinton’s Save Our Treasures Tour and numerous international trips.
Before entering government service, Stephanie was an Associate Professor of Law at Northern Kentucky University’s Salmon P. Chase College of Law, where she taught Civil and Criminal Procedure, Civil Rights Law, Entertainment Law, and Trial Advocacy. Stephanie has also served on the adjunct faculty of Northwestern University School of Law and practiced law with the firm Graydon, Head & Ritchey in Cincinnati. Prior to her legal career, Stephanie was a staff reporter at the Cincinnati Post and the personal assistant to Lionel Richie and the Commodores.
Stephanie’s work as a thought-leader and policy expert has fostered diversity, public engagement and cross-cultural understanding across many segments of society. Her groundbreaking Sunday Morning Apartheid study which she conceived, conducted, and wrote, triggered a significant and measurable increase in the on-air racial diversity of network and cable news programming. Her essays and commentary on public policy, civil rights, and social justice have been featured in The Washington Post, Salon, and other publications.
Stephanie earned her B.A. from Smith College and her J.D. from the University of Cincinnati College of Law, where she was a Fellow in the Urban Morgan Institute of Human Rights. She also attended Tuskegee University as an undergraduate exchange student.
Stephanie Gidigbi
Director of Strategic Initiatives
Stephanie Gidigbi is the Director of Strategic Initiatives and Policy Advisor at the U.S. Department of Transportation. She advances the development and implementation of federal regulations & administration priorities. This includes the President’s Ladders of Opportunity agenda, which seeks to expand economic opportunity for all through interagency working groups focused on community revitalization and pathways to jobs.
Stephanie leads and supports several place-based initiatives that provide technical assistance using established best practices, performance measures and emerging transportation policies to advance the vision of a city by engaging elected officials, industry leaders and regional teams to turn local plans into reality.
Stephanie is the agency designee for the President’s My Brother’s Keeper Initiative, which is an effort to ensure that all youth, including boys and young men of color, have opportunities to improve their life outcomes and overcome barriers to success. In response to this initiative, Stephanie coordinated the launch of the departments’ afterschool mentoring program.
Stephanie also developed and executed the department’s first Data Innovation Challenge competition that highlighted the use of technology, apps, and data visualization to address transportation challenges using open data.
In 2013, Stephanie was appointed by President Obama as the New Jersey Director of Public Engagement for the Hurricane Sandy Task Force. The task force was established to set a new course for resiliency by defining principles and recommendations for investment of the $60 billion in federal funding dedicated to Sandy response and recovery. Stephanie led and supported efforts to launch the Rebuild by Design regional planning and design competition that promoted resilience in the Sandy-affected region. The competition was selected as one of CNN's Top 10 Best Ideas in 2013.
Prior to joining the Obama Administration, Stephanie was the Chief of Staff to the Mayor of Orange, New Jersey and led a comprehensive housing and economic development plan to revitalize distressed neighborhoods in the city due to the foreclosure crisis of 2008. Before that, Stephanie worked in the U.S. Congress for several years as a Senior Legislative Assistant to the late Congressman Donald M. Payne, Sr. of New Jersey. Stephanie received a Master of Arts in Strategic Communication from Seton Hall University and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Communications from Kean University, NJ.
Meredith Howell
Program Manager
Meredith manages the long-term strategic programs and projects Secretary Foxx’s Ladders of Opportunity initiative. She coordinates events across the Department and with stakeholders in communities and industry to further the goals of the initiative. Meredith recommends focus areas and strategic engagements to the Chief Opportunities Officer to ensure broad and diverse stakeholder interaction and education on the Opportunities agenda. She also researches and analyzes emerging areas of opportunity, such as encouraging women and girls to pursue STEM careers like transportation, bolstering the Department’s workforce development initiatives, and furthering regional coordination of transportation projects.