Gabe Klein

Gabe Klein (born February 14, 1971) is an entrepreneur, author, investor and former government official. Klein was Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) from May 16, 2011 to December, 2013. He was appointed to this position by Mayor Rahm Emanuel when he took office on May 16, 2011. Klein was also the Director of the District of Columbia Department of Transportation (DDOT) from the end of 2008 until the end of Mayor Adrian Fenty's term, December 31, 2010. Prior, Klein was an Executive with Boston-based Zipcar. He recently authored a book titled Start-Up City: Inspiring Private and Public Entrepreneurship, Getting Projects Done, and Having Fun published by Island Press

Gabe Klein was born in Hartford, Connecticut. Before high school he spent ages 10–11 studying under Swami Satchidananda at the Yogaville Vidyalayam interfaith school in Buckingham, Virginia. He graduated from Virginia Tech in 1994 and holds a degree in marketing management.

Gabe Klein’s career began working as Director of Stores for Bikes USA. Bikes USA was the nation’s largest bike retailer in the 1990s. Klein had Director-level roles at ProfessionaLink, a national technology-consulting start-up based in Washington D.C. where he led marketing and business development efforts for Fortune 1000 Companies. At the end of 2002, Klein became regional Vice President for Zipcar, overseeing the car sharing system in the D.C. region (2002–2006).

Klein was hired by Founder Robin Chase at the end of 2002 to spearhead growth in the nascent startup which had less than 30 cars in Washington D.C. and no more than 150 nationally. Shortly after Chase stepped down as CEO and retained a board seat. Klein and his team worked on models for fleet management and operations, and marketing. These models are widely credited with helping the start-up gain its footing to scale nationally, and model for international expansion. Washington was also the only region that Zipcar had competition in the mid-2000s in Flexcar. Washington based investor Steve Case and his Revolution LLC venture firm approached Zipcar about investing or purchasing the company based on his favorable view of the Washington operations. Initially rebuffed by the Zipcar Board of Directors, Case took an interest in Flexcar. When Flexcar was swallowed by Flexcar after being outflanked in Washington D.C., Case became the largest single investor in Zipcar, his original goal. Zipcar went to an initial public offering at a $1 billion valuation after Klein left the company, and was ultimately taken private and sold to Avis Budget Group for close to $500 million in 2013, netting $96 million for Case but was widely seen as a disappointing result for shareholders as companies like Hertz and Enterprise Group entered the traditional car sharing business, while Car2Go and Ridesharing pioneer's Lyft and Uber Technologies innovated as Zipcar grew in size and number of markets but not in comparable utility.

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