Maulik Vaishnav

Maulik became chief transition officer in June 2026 to guide the Chicago Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) through its transition to the Northern Illinois Transit Authority (NITA), ensuring strategic leadership and compliance with the NITA Act. His role coordinates with the service boards, government entities, transition consultants and civic partners to align priorities, develop agreements and oversee transition-related tasks. Maulik joined the RTA as senior deputy executive director of planning and capital programming in October 2023. 

Maulik has 15 years of experience in sustainable urban transportation, large-agency transit management and data-driven policy and program implementation. He comes to the RTA from the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), where he served as vice president of innovation for the past 11 years. Notably, Maulik was responsible for creating CTA’s first rider-focused customer experience and marketing strategy and leading the implementation of the “Meeting the Moment” action plan to realign the agency toward post-pandemic customer success.

Before the CTA, Maulik was a transportation planner for Arup in San Fransisco. He is a graduate of Lake Forest College and earned a master's from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.