Adam K. Thiel is the City of Philadelphia’s managing director who serves as the city’s chief operating officer (COO) and a principal member of the mayor’s cabinet.

From 2016 to 2024, Thiel was the uniformed fire commissioner for the Philadelphia Fire Department (PFD), with a concurrent appointment as a deputy managing director, and also served as the Philadelphia Office of Emergency Management (OEM) director from 2019 to 2022. During his 33-year career, across five states, Thiel has worked in government (local, state, and federal), the private sector, and not-for-profit organizations; before coming to Philadelphia, he was a deputy secretary of public safety and homeland security for the Commonwealth of Virginia.

He is an Eisenhower USA fellow, an Aspen Institute health innovation fellow, and a Leadership Philadelphia alumnus. A lifelong learner, Thiel has attended the University of Pennsylvania, the London School of Economics and Political Science, Arizona State University, George Mason University, the University of Maryland Global Campus, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; he is an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University and George Mason University.