Alma Mater: Rice University
Fast Fact about yourself: I’m a mom to a three- and five-year old.
After graduating with a degree in civil and environmental engineering, Ellory Monks was selected for a two-year fellowship working with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, focusing on infrastructure issues across various sectors, including water and transportation.
Following her fellowship, Monks started a venture-backed technology startup aimed at helping state and local governments learn from each other to build modern infrastructure more efficiently. She successfully sold that startup in late 2020. After selling her startup, Monks led the state and local government segment for the acquiring company, where she built and brought half a dozen products to market, all geared towards helping state and local decision-makers do their jobs better.
In 2024, Ellory joined Cubic Transportation Systems as the vice president of innovation, bringing innovative technology and ideas to life for transit riders around the world. Within a year, she was promoted to chief ventures officer, reflecting her growing success and responsibilities.
During her time at Cubic, her portfolio rapidly expanded to overseeing four different ventures that her teams were developing, scaling and bringing to market. In the last 12 months alone, she has facilitated the launch of these new ventures and has allocated more than $10 million in new capital towards these innovative business lines. Monks has also taken on the leadership of the Umo business unit and played a key role in the facilitation and creation of the recently announced innovation center in London.
As a startup founder, female executive and mother, Monks has broken traditional barriers and serves as an inspiration to many within her industry. She frequently advises startups and small businesses, especially those who serve in government in one way or another. She also has a special interest in encouraging entrepreneurship in women, minority and other underrepresented groups. In addition to individual mentorship, she frequently hosts women in STEM roundtables to build a global community of women supporting other women in transit. She’s also written half a dozen articles for the Brookings Institution and has been interviewed by the New York Times on matters of infrastructure funding and finance.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
Bringing new products and businesses to life, taking them from idea to reality for travelers and transit riders in major cities around the world. There are very few roles or companies that offer the same scale and potential for impact as we do at Cubic.
What is the accomplishment you’re most proud of and why?
I’m most proud of building the next generation of fare gates, FEnX, which will be installed in stations this fall, including New York City. It’s been an incredibly rewarding project, going from concept to pilot to field integration in just 18 months.
What is your best advice/tip/best practice you can share from your area of expertise?
Get really clear on the problem you're solving, who you're solving it for and why it matters. The more clarity you have on those three questions, the more smoothly everything else tends to flow, from solution design to funding. Whenever I hit roadblocks, it’s usually because I’m unclear on one or more of those things.
About the Author
Megan Perrero
Editor in Chief
Megan Perrero is a national award-winning B2B journalist and lover of all things transit. Currently, she is the Editor in Chief of Mass Transit magazine, where she develops and leads a multi-channel editorial strategy while reporting on the North American public transit industry.
Prior to her position with Mass Transit, Perrero was the senior communications and external relations specialist for the Shared-Use Mobility Center, where she was responsible for helping develop internal/external communications, plan the National Shared Mobility Summit and manage brand strategy and marketing campaigns.
Perrero serves as the board secretary for Latinos In Transit and is a member of the American Public Transportation Association Marketing and Communications Committee. She holds a bachelor’s degree in multimedia journalism with a concentration in magazine writing and a minor in public relations from Columbia College Chicago.