His military awards and decorations include the bronze star, combat action badge, ranger tab, master parachutist badge, and department of defense award for distinguished public service.

In his civilian life, Mr. Tata leads his consulting firm, Tata Leadership Group, where he advises companies that specialize in artificial intelligence, machine learning, cyber defense, data compaction, liquid immersion cooling, aviation engineering, natural gas decarbonization, tethered drones, and many other defense-related technologies. He maintains an active Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information security clearance with DoD.

Previously, he served as North Carolina’s Secretary of Transportation, Superintendent of Wake County Public School System (Raleigh, NC/Research Triangle), and Chief Operating Officer of Washington, DC Public Schools. As Secretary of Transportation, Tony managed 72 airports, two seaports, three railroads, 22 ferries, 88,000 miles of highway, and 100 transit systems. He was influential in changing state law to prioritize transportation projects that reduced congestion and travel time, increased safety and multi-modal connections, and created jobs. As superintendent of the 15^th largest public education system in the country with 150,000 students, 170 schools, and 18,000 employees, Tony implemented innovative programming that led to the highest gains in low-income student proficiency and growth in the history of the system.

Tony frequently provides geopolitical updates and/or leadership remarks to senior leaders in Fortune 500 and private equity companies such as Delta Airlines, AFLAC, Goldman Sachs, Salesforce, Google, Emerson Collective, General Electric, Bank of America, John Deere, Chevron, Andreeson Horowitz, Silver Lake, and many others.

He is the national bestselling author of 15 novels, including Besieged, a Publishers Weekly Top 10 Mystery/Thriller of 2017 and Foreign and Domestic, a Barry Award finalist in 2016. Tony is a frequent guest commentator on a variety of popular cable news programs regarding foreign policy with over 1,000 appearances and is a Newsmax National Security contributor. Mr. Tata presently serves on the board of directors of Edge Data Solutions and on the advisory board of Academy Securities. Tony is also an ambassador for Homes for Our Troops, a 501c3 focused on providing ADA compliant homes to our most severely wounded veterans.

He is a West Point graduate with a Bachelor of Science and has two master’s degrees, one from the U.S. Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies in operational planning and another from the Catholic University of America in international relations. He was also a distinguished national security fellow at Harvard University’s JFK School of Government.