Bo Kemp is a senior director with the firm’s government advocacy and consulting team, focusing on public-private partnerships (P3), municipal operations and municipal efficiency. He has built a national network and expertise in municipal utilities and other public infrastructure as well as economic development growth strategies for “legacy” cities.

Bo spent the first decade of his professional career in finance with Morgan Stanley & Co. and TSG Capital Group, a private equity group. Then, after leading Cory A. Booker’s successful transition to the office of Mayor of Newark, N.J., Bo became the city’s business administrator (Chief Operating Officer). In three years, Booker (now a U.S. Senator), Bo and the senior leadership team helped move Newark from a city close to bankruptcy to a community growing in population for the first time in 40 years.

As business administrator, Bo was responsible for overseeing all operations of the city, including public safety (police and fire), economic development, child and family well-being, public works and administrative services. He also was responsible for all state and federal lobbying, union negotiations, and emergency management/ homeland security preparedness. His achievements in office are as follows:

• Completed the 2006 budget in three months (upon entering office) followed by introducing the first on-time budget in 21 years with no tax increase with the 2007 budget.
• Created the first comprehensive assessment of city assets and introduced the first 10-year capital investment/maintenance plan in decades.
• Partnered with strategic consulting firms, forensic accountants, major corporations, universities and hospitals around the state to develop and implement a citywide restructuring plan. Restructured all departments and titles, reducing the workforce by 10 percent.
• Created new divisions such as Innovation & Performance Management, Information Technology, Risk Management, Grants Management and Marketing (Visitor’s Bureau) to increase efficiency of operations, enhance revenue collection and reposition the city.
• Negotiated the first performance-based municipal union contracts in the history of the state of New Jersey. Negotiated reductions in union costs to the city of over $30 million per year. Also negotiated flex-time with unions to enable City Hall to open on Saturdays and evenings for citizens.
• Increased property tax collection rate from 85.5 percent to over 92.0 percent.
• Initiated revenue strategy that increased special tax collection by 50 percent over three years, resulting in an additional $30 million in revenue per year.
• Initiated cost-cutting programs that reduced the city’s operating budget by $40 million in the first year in office. Expect to generate an additional $25 million-$30 million in cost reductions by the end of FY 2007.
• Created a culture of excellence by revamping the performance evaluation process for all city workers; by implementing Performance TRAC, a performance management tool to help allocate resources to service delivery needs; and by launching a 3-1-1 non-emergency phone line to track and service citizen needs.
• Oversaw the negotiation and completion of the Prudential Center, Newark’s 19,000-seat entertainment and hockey arena downtown and the refinancing of Newark’s 3,000-seat Bears/Eagles minor league baseball stadium.
• Revamped all internal controls by creating a contract compliance unit, increasing our internal audit team from one to five people and completing a new internal controls policy and procedures manual that included mandatory training for management.
• Initiated strategy to raise the city’s credit rating from Baa2 (stable) to  A (positive) in three years.
• State and federal lobbying efforts have resulted in an additional $45 million in aid from the state in FY 2008 and almost $5 million in federal appropriations.

Senior Advisor to Mayor in Gary, Indiana

After leaving Newark, Bo returned to entrepreneurial endeavors until 2011 when he became senior advisor for another mayor, Karen Freeman-Wilson of Gary, Indiana, and executive director of the Gary Economic Development Corporation. In his roles, Bo was responsible for helping to oversee the Gary Sanitary District (waste and storm water), negotiating the city’s new residential waste collection contract, implementing the Mayor’s Clean Technology (waste to energy) strategy, and helping to guide and negotiate a $100 million public-private partnership with the Gary/Chicago International Airport. More recently, he also has been engaged in neighborhood transformation through implementation of several federal and philanthropic grants. His achievements in office, to date, are as follows:

• Developing the plan for and implementing the $100 million Gary/Chicago International Airport’s public private partnership with AvPorts/Avco team. This has included developing a 50-year vision plan for the airport footprint (completed longer runway and planning new hangars) and the industrial footprint between the airport and Lake Michigan. This industrial footprint includes three Class A rail lines (Norfolk Southern, CSX and Canadian National), a potential cargo shipping port in Buffington Harbor and the Majestic Star Casino.
• Awarded and planning for Choice Neighborhood Planning Grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for the University Park East area of Gary, Indiana, to transform and grow the community. This University Park East area includes Indiana University Northwest Campus and Ivy Tech Community College. There are more than 10,000 people who work and study in this area daily, yet less than 300 who both work/study and live there. This project includes the development of a $45 million arts and science building shared by both schools as well as a rapid bus transit route connecting three Indiana communities by bus and Chicago by bus to rail.
• Awarded and planning for the Strong Cities, Strong Communities initiative from the U.S. Economic Development Administration for advancement of the Northside development in Gary. This project includes development of the health corridor near Methodist Hospital, Gary’s Downtown development (convention center and baseball stadium) and the Miller Beach lakefront development. This initiative and specifically the lakefront development is tied closely to the improvements in rail access to downtown Chicago and the implementation of a public-private partnership strategy to leverage structured parking development to spur mixed-use economic development project next to train stations (transit-oriented development).

Civic Activities

• Young Tycoon Fund, New York City — Founder and Chairman, 1996-present
• Arts Westchester, White Plains, NY — Board Member, 2010-present
• New Rochelle (NY) Public Library — Trustee, 2010-15
• Marathon Foundation, New York City — Board Member, 2013-present
• Gary Economic Development Corporation — Executive Director, 2015-present

Personal Interests

Bo enjoys traveling and hopes to visit 100 countries in his lifetime. He’s a dangerous golfer but an aspiring aquaponics and micro farmer.