Derek Tai-Ching Kan (; born August 15, 1978) is an American businessman and government official who has served as a governor of the United States Postal Service since 2022. He served as deputy director of the

Office of Management and Budget The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is the largest office within the Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP). The office's most prominent function is to produce the president's budget, while it also examines agency pro ...

in 2020. Kan served as the under secretary of transportation for policy from 2017 to 2019. He was confirmed by the Senate four times. In the private sector, he has worked for various tech startups, Bain & Co., Elliott Management, Lyft, Oaktree Capital Management, and Toll Brothers. He is an alumnus of the University of Southern California, the London School of Economics, and Stanford University.

Career

Kan became a Presidential Management Fellow at the Office of Management and Budget in 2004. From 2006 to 2010, Kan was as a policy adviser to Senate Majority Leader

Mitch McConnell Addison Mitchell McConnell III (; born February 20, 1942) is an American politician and attorney serving as the senior United States senator from Kentucky, a seat he has held since 1985. McConnell is in his seventh Senate term and is the long ...

. Kan served as chief economist for the Senate Republican Policy Committee. He served during the

2008 financial crisis The 2008 financial crisis, also known as the global financial crisis (GFC), was a major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States. The causes of the 2008 crisis included excessive speculation on housing values by both homeowners ...

and the implementation of Dodd-Frank. He worked as a management consultant at Bain & Company from 2012 to 2014. Kan worked as director of strategy at Genapsys, a biotech startup in

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

from 2014 to 2015. It was later acquired by Sequencing Health. He was as an advisor at Elliott Management Corporation. In 2015, President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

nominated Kan for the board of

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

; his appointment was unanimously confirmed by the Senate. Prior to assuming his Transportation Department position, Kan was the general manager of the Southern California region for

Lyft Lyft, Inc. is an American company offering ride-hailing services, motorized scooters, and bicycle-sharing systems in the United States and Canada. Lyft sets fares, which vary using a dynamic pricing model based on local supply and demand a ...

. Kan worked at Lyft from 2015 to 2017. In April 2017, Kan was nominated by President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

to become under secretary of transportation for policy in the

United States Department of Transportation The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT or DOT) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It is headed by the secretary of transportation, who reports directly to the president of the United States a ...

. He was confirmed by the Senate on November 13, 2017. His work at the Department of Transportation focused heavily on self-driving cars. In July 2019, Kan resigned from his position in the Department of Transportation to take on the position of executive associate director at the Office of Management and Budget. In 2019, the Trump administration briefly considered Kan for a

Federal Reserve The Federal Reserve System (often shortened to the Federal Reserve, or simply the Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. It was created on December 23, 1913, with the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, after a series of ...

board seat. In 2020, Kan was appointed to the White House Coronavirus Task Force. In November 2021, President Biden announced he would appoint Kan to the Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service. On May 12, 2022, his nomination was confirmed in the

United States Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and ...

voice vote In parliamentary procedure, a voice vote (from the Latin ''viva voce'', meaning "by live voice") or acclamation is a voting method in deliberative assemblies (such as legislatures) in which a group vote is taken on a topic or motion by respondin ...

. As of 2021, Kan worked as an outside advisor to Oaktree Capital Group with a focus on infrastructure and emerging technology. In December of 2021, Kan was appointed to the board of

Toll Brothers Toll Brothers, Inc. is an American homebuilding company that builds, markets, and finances for residential and commercial properties in the United States. In 2020, the company was the fifth largest home builder in the United States, based on ho ...

. As of 2022, Kan served on the board of Deliverr, a startup focused on e-commerce fulfillment services. His work continued after the firm was acquired by

Shopify Shopify Inc., stylized as ''shopify'', headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, operates an e-commerce platform for retail point-of-sale systems that offers payments, marketing, shipping, inventory management, transaction management, and customer eng ...

where, as of 2023, he was a vice president.

Education

Kan holds an MBA from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar. He studied economic history at the

London School of Economics The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...

where he earned a MSc. Kan earned a BS in business administration from the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kan, Derek 1978 births Living people 21st-century American businesspeople Alumni of the London School of Economics American politicians of Chinese descent Amtrak people Bain & Company employees Deputy Directors for Management of the Office of Management and Budget Lyft people Obama administration personnel Businesspeople from Los Angeles Politicians from Los Angeles Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni First Trump administration personnel United States Department of Transportation officials University of Southern California alumni