The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority Board of Directors has chosen a new permanent general manager and chief executive officer during its regularly scheduled meeting Thursday.
Channel 2’s Richard Elliot reports the board gave interim CEO and general manager Jonathan J. Hunt the full-time job over two other candidates including the leader of the Washington D.C. metro.
Hunt has served as interim general manager and chief executive officer since August 2025.
He was named interim CEO when former chief exec Collie Greenwood resigned because of immigration issues.
Greenwood’s resignation came at a critical time for MARTA as it was asked to be the critical part of the transportation infrastructure for the FIFA World Cup.
MARTA Board Chair Jennifer Ide says his performance, and MARTA’s successful performance during FIFA World Cup was one of the big factors in their decision.
“Through it all, he led with passion, with dedication and with unwavering leadership, culminating in what was, by nearly every account, an extremely successful World Cup,” she said.
But the past year didn’t come without bumps.
The modern new train cars promised to be in service in time for World Cup weren’t.
But board members overlooked that, seeing instead the good reviews of MARTA’s performance under the national and international spotlight.
Hunt thanked the board and his leadership team, and said one of his main focuses now is regaining public trust in MARTA.
“And additionally, some additional transparency, as much as we possibly can in order to building back trust in MARTA. We started doing that in a major way this year, but we still have a long way to go,” he said.
Hunt joined MARTA in 2014 and spent more than a decade in its legal department, holding positions as chief of corporate law and real estate, deputy chief counsel and chief legal counsel.
Earlier in his career, he served as a senior assistant city attorney for the City of Atlanta handling aviation matters for Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
Hunt serves on the national board of the American Public Transportation Association.
He said he was “humbled, honored and excited to get to work.”
“I am honored by this decision and look forward to continuing the important work of improving MARTA service, increasing ridership, and expanding the transit system,” Hunt said. “This last year serving in the interim role has been the most rewarding and purposeful experience of my professional career and I have a renewed dedication to this vital work, and most importantly to the people we serve every day.”
MARTA said three finalists were interviewed Monday for the position of permanent general manager and chief executive officer.
The interviews follow a national search to identify a permanent successor to lead one of the largest public transit systems in the United States.
Besides Hunt, the other two finalists included Cleveland Ferguson III, executive vice president and chief administrative officer of the Jacksonville Transportation Authority, and Leroy Jones, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.
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