As the executive director of TACC, Neil skillfully guides the organization’s team of professionals and technical service consultants. His leadership is built on extensive domestic and international experience directing initiatives to develop social change strategies, as well as performance management and evaluation systems for community development, education, economic development, and housing . This dynamic, real-world experience informs his teaching at Boston College, where his popular course analyzes the factors critical to the successful transformation of urban neighborhoods.

Neil formerly served as country director for CHF International (now Global Communities) in Azerbaijan on a multi-year, community development program funded by the United States Agency for International Development. Prior to his work in Azerbaijan, Neil worked in Mongolia where he co-directed operations of a multi-city, United States government-funded, private sector development program. He also oversaw all aspects of a reconstruction and refugee resettlement program in post-war Kosovo.

Neil holds an undergraduate degree from Boston College; he received an M.B.A. from Boston University and an M.P.A. from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He has served as a member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and was awarded a Roy and Lila Ash Fellowship for Innovations in Democracy and Governance from the Kennedy School.