Director

Executive in Residence Richard Taylor is an experienced collaborative leader with a proven track record of significantly improving work environments. He holds an MBA and JD from Harvard University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. His areas of expertise include asset and market growth, organizational flexibility, and strategy.

Since joining Suffolk University in 2008, Taylor implemented the Real Estate Studies program at Suffolk University and established the Future Investors in Real Estate (FIRE) student club. He also developed a partnership with the Greater Boston Real Estate Board to sponsor the Building Boston 2030 forums, which discuss the future of Boston and its ability to compete for innovative companies and jobs.

Taylor currently serves as Chairman of the Taylor-Smith Companies, where he manages multiple real estate business entities, including commercial real estate brokerage, development, and retail operations.

He has development experience in the residential, retail, and commercial sectors of the real estate industry. He has developed in excess of $300 million in real estate, largely in Boston’s urban markets. His development projects include Douglass Plaza, Olympia Tower, Fountain Hill, and Bradford Estates. He has also been a general partner in the development of retail establishments surrounding Orange Line and Red Line MBTA stations.

In his early real estate career, Taylor was vice president of development at FMR Properties Inc., where he helped convert the old Commonwealth Pier in Boston Harbor into Boston’s World Trade Center.

During the real estate recession in the 90s, Taylor joined Governor Bill Weld as his first secretary of transportation. For his two-year period, he was very active in “horizontal construction,” reestablishing rail service from Worcester to Boston and overseeing much of the construction of the Ted Williams Tunnel and the Dudley Station Bus Terminal. He initiated construction of the new South Station Bus Terminal, as well as the Old Colony Commuter Rail project. He also started construction on the $14 billion Big Dig project.

He is past chairman of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, past president of the Boston Ballet, and the founding president of the Minority Developers Association. He has been deputy chair of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and chairman of the board of the MBTA. Taylor also completed a six-year term as a gubernatorial appointment to the Board of Higher Education for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He currently serves on the board of overseers for the Huntington Theater.