New York MTA’s CFO Bob Foran to Retire From Transit Agency

(Bloomberg) -- Bob Foran, who has served since 2010 as the chief financial officer at the largest transit system in the U.S., will retire from New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority this month.

Foran, 65, oversees the MTA’s budgets and its finances and bond sales, which help support the agency’s large-scale plans to expand the Second Avenue Subway into Harlem, rehabilitate Penn Station and modernize its subway network to reduce delays. 

“It’s no secret that the MTA is in debt to many because of Bob,” Janno Lieber, the MTA’s chief executive officer, said after announcing Foran’s retirement during the agency’s board meeting on Wednesday. “Since 2010 he’s overseen more than $96 billion in transactions to help the MTA build our capital program and so much else.”

Prior to joining the MTA, Foran was a municipal-bond underwriter who was head of public finance at Bear Stearns & Co. At the MTA, he guided the transit agency’s spending plans following the 2008 financial crisis and during the pandemic, when ridership plummeted.

“He’s brought the MTA’s finances back from the brink at least three different times,” Lieber said.

Jai Patel, MTA’s deputy chief financial officer, will serve in Foran’s position in an acting capacity, Lieber said.

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