Former City Manager

Rod Gould, ILG Senior Consultant, has 38 years of experience in government service, of which 29 were in city management in California. Rod served as city manager of Santa Monica, Poway, San Rafael, and Monrovia as well as assistant city manager of Walnut Creek. Prior to city management, he served as a senior management consultant for Deloitte, Haskins and Sells in San Francisco and assistant director of operations for the Boston Housing Authority.

Rod has served as western regional vice president of the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) and on its executive board of directors. He has also been president of the City Managers Department of the League of California Cities, and on the League’s board of directors. Rod is Chair of the Board of the HdL Companies providing financial and technology assistance to local governments in fifteen states.

He served on the boards of directors of the Institute for Local Government (Chair), Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership, and as a Senior Partner for Management Partners and Senior Advisor for Raftelis, providing consulting services to local governments. Rod chaired the ICMA Taskforce on Leadership and League of Cities pension reform committee and served as city manager in residence at Stanford, Pepperdine, Cornell, USC, and UC Berkeley.

He taught in the USC, San Francisco State University, and Long Beach State University MPA programs, instructs at the Stanford Local Government Summer Institute and has been an ICMA Credentialed Manager since 2008. Rod was an instructor for the California Police Officer Standards and Training Commission (POST) and Director of Training for the Center for Public Safety Management. In 2017, he was honored by ICMA with its Distinguished Service Award.

Rod is a frequent speaker at professional conferences and has received awards from professional and civic associations in ethics, city management, community leadership, communication, citizenship, and advancement of diverse communities. He has authored over 30 articles for Western City, Public Management, Governing, Public CEO, and Public Risk magazines. Rod holds a B.A. in economics and political science from Yale University and master’s degrees in education and public administration from Harvard University.

Rod’s consulting services focus on governance training and facilitation, strategic goal setting and reporting, civic engagement, team building, organizational development, conflict resolution, facilitated performance evaluation, executive coaching, and management systems design.