Oakland’s incoming mayor announced a transition team Friday that includes a former Oakland city attorney, a former Alameda County supervisor, a Lawrence Berkeley National Lab scientist and at least three current or former hospital executives.
Mayor-elect Barbara Lee selected her team nearly two weeks after the retired U.S. congresswoman was elected to replace former Mayor Sheng Thao, who voters removed from office last November.
The announcement comes after Lee campaigned heavily to be a steadying force for a city that will have four mayors in just seven months, including two interim mayors in recent months. Once sworn in later this month, Lee will serve the remainder of Thao’s term, through 2026.
In a statement Friday, Lee framed her selections as key to delivering “transparency, accountability and results.”
“With the help of these dynamic leaders and residents, this is what we will deliver together,” Lee said in her press release announcing the team.
Lee previously announced that Keith Brown, the executive secretary of the Alameda Labor Council AFL-CIO, and Barbara Leslie, a port commissioner and CEO of the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, would co-chair her transition committee.
On Friday, Lee also announced three lead advisors for the transition team, led by former Port of Oakland Executive Director Danny Wan, who will serve as transition director. Barbara Parker — who served as Oakland’s city attorney from 2011 through 2025 — was named a senior advisor, along with former San Francisco City Controller Ben Rosenfield.
Lee also announced the formation of a dozen working groups and councils, including those focused on good governance, public safety, homelessness, small business and arts and culture.
The transition committee’s members are as follows:
Michael Barnett, a senior physicist and scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
Fred Blackwell, CEO of the San Francisco Foundation
Keith Carson, former Alameda County’s supervisor from 1993 to 2024
Creighton Davis, former chair of Oakland’s Community Policing Advisory Board
Quinn Delaney, founder and Board Chair of the Akonadi Foundation
Jeanette Dong, chief strategy officer of the Alameda Health System
Viola Gonzales, former president of the League of Women Voters of Oakland
Robert L. Harris, executive member at large of the Oakland NAACP
Freada Kapor Klein, founding partner of Kapor Capital
Paul Markovich, president and CEO of Ascendiun
Carrie Owen Plietz, regional president for Kaiser Permanente Northern California
Owen Plietz, former executive for Wellstar Health System and Sutter Medical Center in Sacramento
Maximus Simmons, Oakland Unified School District student board director
Sheryl Walton, co-chair of the Block by Block Organizing Network
