Kathleen O'Toole
Kathleen O’Toole is the former Chief of Police of the Seattle Police Department and former Commissioner of the Boston Police Department. She has held several executive positions in the public and private sectors and is widely recognized for her principled leadership and successful reform efforts in North America and Europe.
As a law school student, O'Toole accepted a position as patrol officer with the Boston Police Department and quickly rose through the ranks. She served as Chief of the Metropolitan District Commission Police in Boston, Lieutenant Colonel overseeing Special Operations in the Massachusetts State Police, Massachusetts Secretary of Public Safety, Boston Police Commissioner and Seattle Chief of Police. She also served as Chief Inspector of the Garda Síochána, the Irish national police service. She was a member of the Independent Commission on Policing during the Northern Ireland Peace Process, the Commission on the Future of Policing in England and Wales, and recently chaired the Commission on the Future of Policing in the Republic of Ireland. She has also performed services as a subject-matter expert for the US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and was appointed as Monitor to oversee a federally supervised consent decree in East Haven, Connecticut. She was an advisor to the Illinois AG’s Office during the development of a settlement agreement between the City of Chicago and the State, and now serves as a member of the monitoring team overseeing the project. She also serves as a member of the monitoring team in Baltimore.
O'Toole's public safety experience extends well beyond policing. When serving as Secretary of Public Safety in Massachusetts, she was responsible for twenty agencies, boards and commissions. In addition to the Massachusetts State Police, those agencies included the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, the Department of Fire Services, the Department of Correction and the Registry of Motor Vehicles. She chaired the Boston Fire Department Review Commission and was a member of a four-member panel that developed the framework for reform of the Northern Ireland Prison Service. She has overseen and directed planning, operations, and recovery for hundreds of major events and natural disasters.
O'Toole has substantial private sector experience as well. As a practicing attorney, she has represented clients on civil matters and acted “of counsel” to a Boston law firm. She once served as a corporate security manager at Digital Equipment Corporation and had global responsibility for executive protection, crisis management and threats of violence in the workplace. O'Toole has also provided a diverse range of consulting services to several multi-national corporations based in North America and Europe.
In the academic arena, O'Toole has conducted and published research in the areas of organization science, law and criminal justice. She served as an adjunct faculty member at Northeastern University, University of Ulster and Seattle University. She holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Boston College, a Juris Doctor from New England School of Law, and a PhD from the Business School of Trinity College Dublin.