Gabe Klein

Gabe Klein is a Founding Partner of Cityfi, advising governments and companies worldwide on innovation in cities. Klein is the former Commissioner of the Chicago and Washington, DC Departments of Transportation, where he relentlessly revamped arcane government processes and communication internally and externally to eliminate speed to implementation with a focus on putting people first vs. automobiles on city streets.

This included building bus rapid transit, streetcar, two of the first and largest bikeshare systems in the U.S. and 100’s of miles of protected bike lanes and better pedestrian infrastructure for vulnerable citizens citywide, as well as facilitating private services like carshare and rideshare that could help further each city’s mobility goals. As Commissioner in Chicago, he also revamped public spaces, working to bring a new Riverwalk to Chicago as well as the breathtaking Bloomingdale Trail and four new CTA transit stations. Klein has twice been a visiting fellow for the Centre For Livable Cities in Singapore, working on creating a “car-lite” city-state. Klein honed his creativity and leadership skills working in business, including Zipcar, where he served as Vice President, Bikes USA as National Director of Stores and CEO of his own electric powered, organic food truck chain, On The Fly.

Post-government, and after an enriching fellowship with the Urban Land Institute in 2014, Klein joined Fontinalis Partners as Venture Partner on their $100 million 2nd fund and continues today with the launch of the $200 million FCP3 fund in 2019. In 2015, Klein also published Start-Up City with David Vega-Barachowitz on Island Press, a manifesto on revamping how we innovate in cities and rethinking public-private partnerships with a triple-bottom line approach as technology shapes a dramatically different future. Klein sits on the boards of Streetsblog, Carma, TransitScreen and advisory boards of NACTO, Spin, Stae, Numina, Bespoke and many others.