Previously, he served as North Carolina’s Secretary of Transportation, Superintendent of Wake County Public School System (Raleigh, NC/Research Triangle), and Chief Operating Officer of Washington, DC Public Schools.

As Secretary of Transportation, Tony managed 72 airports, two seaports, three railroads, 22 ferries, 88,000 miles of highway, and 100 transit systems. He was influential in changing state law to prioritize transportation projects that reduced congestion and travel time, increased safety and multi-modal connections, and created jobs.

As superintendent of the 15th largest public education system in the country with 150,000 students, 170 schools, and 18,000 employees, Tony implemented innovative programming that led to the highest gains in low-income student proficiency and growth in the history of the system.

Tony frequently provides geopolitical updates and/or leadership remarks to senior leaders in Fortune 500 and private equity companies such as Delta Airlines, AFLAC, Goldman Sachs, Salesforce, Google, Emerson Collective, General Electric, Bank of America, John Deere, Chevron, Andreeson Horowitz, Silver Lake, and many others.

He is the national bestselling author of 16 novels, including Besieged, a Publishers Weekly Top 10 Mystery/Thriller of 2017 and Foreign and Domestic, a Barry Award finalist in 2016. He is a frequent guest commentator on a variety of popular cable news programs regarding foreign policy with over 1,000 appearances.

Mr. Tata presently serves on the board of directors of publicly traded companies Coda Octopus (CODA) and Edge Data Solutions and on the advisory boards of investment bank Academy Securities, Hub Cybersecurity, and Homefront Brands. He serves as an advisor to The Franchise Consulting Company where he participates in multiple franchising operations including the tech company RobotLAB. Tony is also an ambassador for Homes for Our Troops, a 501c3 focused on providing ADA compliant homes to our most severely wounded veterans.

He is a West Point graduate with a Bachelor of Science and has two master’s degrees, one from the U.S. Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies in operational planning and another from the Catholic University of America in international relations. He was also a distinguished national security fellow at Harvard University’s JFK School of Government.