Antioch Mayor Bernal attends another Bloomberg Center for Cities leadership class at Harvard
Saturday, July 18th, 2026
One of two mayors from California, among 46 from 15 countries, who together lead over 22 million people, selected for program
Joint effort with Bloomberg Philanthropies marks decade of strengthening local government while advancing research, teaching and the practice of city hall leadership
By Jaden Baird, PIO, City of Antioch
ANTIOCH, CA — Mayor Ron Bernal announced, Friday, July 17, 2026, being selected as one of the 46 mayors from 15 countries for the tenth class of the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative. He participated this past week at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the Class of 2027. Through the nine-month professional management program, Mayor Bernal—alongside key Antiochstaff who will begin in August—will gain strategies to improve how local government works and move residents’ chief priorities forward. This is the second time Bernal has been selected to participate in a class at the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard’s Kennedy School. He also attended the First 100 Days program in December 2024. Bernal and Stockton Mayor Christina Fugazi were the only mayors from California selected for the tenth class.
“I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative and to bring learnings home to Antioch,” said Mayor Ron Bernal. “The program gives mayors access to expert faculty, research-backed frameworks, and practical tools we can put to work right away. For Antioch, that means building on our work to address blighted areas and make them cleaner, safer and more vibrant—because our community deserves a city hall that never stops learning and networking.”
The flagship Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative is at the center of more than 10 years of work led by Bloomberg Philanthropies through its Government Innovation program to strengthen mayoral leadership and local government across the globe. Today, it is where the world’s mayors come to learn—and to lead. Mayor Bernal joined them.
Established with Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School, and housed at the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard, the Initiative will have now served 447 mayors—including eight in ten of America’s big-city mayors and nine of England’s mayoral strategic authorities—alongside over 3,000 municipal chiefs.
“Mayors sit at the first and last mile of every major problem we face, and we built the Government Innovation program to ensure they have the capacity required to lead,” said James Anderson, who leads the Government Innovation program at Bloomberg Philanthropies. “The Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative is at its center, and in a moment that demands more from public leadership than ever, this class will have that world of support behind them. We look forward to these mayors putting it to work, and all that their city halls will do.”
Through the Initiative, Bernal will work alongside Harvard faculty, policy experts, veteran managers and fellow mayors—periodically in classrooms, virtual sessions, and in the field—beginning with a multi-day convening in New York City this week. Participants learn to organize teams around outcomes, ground decisions in evidence, and collaborate across departments and sectors—applying lessons directly to the issues at home, from housing and affordability to economic growth, public safety, and emergency response.
Once the coursework ends, Antioch remains eligible for more: professional education for senior officials in economic development, human resources, procurement and civic engagement; a Bloomberg Harvard City Hall Fellow, placed for up to two years on a priority the mayor sets; and research and instructional material developed across the program’s first decade.
“Leading a city is among the hardest jobs in public service anywhere as the demands on mayors—and the complex challenges they face—continue to grow,” said Jorrit de Jong, Director of the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University and Emma Bloomberg Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Management at Harvard Kennedy School.“Meeting those challenges requires city halls to continually strengthen how they work, and with Michael R. Bloomberg’s unwavering backing, we built the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative to help them do just that—and every mayor teaches us in return. With a decade of that insight and research behind this tenth class, we expect their city halls to deliver at home and push the program’s work—and the field itself—further still.”
The tenth class of mayors represents 28 U.S. and 18 international cities, home to more than 22 million residents. The Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative Class of 2027 included:
- NORTH AMERICA
United States:
- Mayor Dorcey Applyrs – Albany, New York
- Mayor Ron Bernal – Antioch, California
- Mayor Sean Ryan – Buffalo, New York
- Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui – Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Mayor Stephen M. Morris – Concord, North Carolina
- Mayor Shenise Turner-Sloss – Dayton, Ohio
- Mayor Mary Sheffield – Detroit, Michigan
- Mayor Sharon Tucker – Fort Wayne, Indiana
- Mayor John Horhn – Jackson, Mississippi
- Mayor James Solomon – Jersey City, New Jersey
- Mayor Christal Watson – Kansas City, Kansas
- Mayor Jaime Arroyo – Lancaster, Pennsylvania
- Mayor Eileen Higgins – Miami, Florida
- Mayor John Ewing – Omaha, Nebraska
- Mayor Keith Wilson – Portland, Oregon
- Mayor Marsha Judkins – Provo, Utah
- Mayor Angela Birney – Redmond, Washington
- Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones – San Antonio, Texas
- Mayor Michael Garcia – Santa Fe, New Mexico
- Mayor Van Johnson – Savannah, Georgia
- Mayor Jake Wilson – Somerville, Massachusetts
- Mayor James Mueller – South Bend, Indiana
- Mayor Lisa Brown – Spokane, Washington
- Mayor Kaohly Her – St. Paul, Minnesota
- Mayor Christina Fugazi – Stockton, California
- Mayor Sharon Owens – Syracuse, New York
- Mayor Anders Ibsen – Tacoma, Washington
- Mayor Spencer Duncan – Topeka, Kansas
Canada: Mayor Maude Marquis-Bissonnette – Gatineau, Canada
Jamaica: Mayor Andrew Swaby – Kingston, Jamaica
- SOUTH AMERICA
- Mayor Carlos Fernando Galán – Bogotá, Colombia
- Mayor Agustín Iglesias – Independencia, Chile
- Mayor Felipe Alessandri – Lo Barnechea, Chile
- Mayor Esteban Allasino – Luján de Cuyo, Argentina
- Mayor Sebastián Sichel – Ñuñoa, Chile
- Mayor Ramón Lanús – San Isidro, Argentina
- AFRICA
- Mayor Sam Nujoma – Khomas Region, Namibia
- Mayor Fatiha El Moudni – Rabat, Morocco
- EUROPE
- Mayor Richard Shakespeare – Dublin, Ireland
- Mayor Stephan Keller – Düsseldorf, Germany
- Mayor Mathias De Clercq – Ghent, Belgium
- Mayor Carlos Moedas – Lisbon, Portugal
- Mayor Helen Godwin – West of England, United Kingdom
- Mayor Tomislav Tomašević – Zagreb, Croatia
- OCEANIA
- Mayor Sophie Barker – Dunedin, New Zealand
- Mayor Mahé Drysdale – Tauranga, New Zealand
In July 13 and 14, 2026, posts on X, Michael Bloomberg wrote, “For the past decade, I’ve had the opportunity to share lessons from my 12 years in New York City Hall with hundreds of mayors through @BHcityleaders. This is our 10th class, and this month, 46 mayors from 15 countries will come together to begin learning from one another and working with Bloomberg @CenterforCities at @Harvard faculty & policy experts to help them better tackle the challenges their residents care about most. Mayors are expected to solve some of the toughest problems we face. That takes bold leadership, talented teams, and a willingness to try new ideas. It was great to meet the tenth class of the @bhcityleaders…They’re bringing fresh thinking and a determination to make their communities stronger.”
The flagship Initiative has also informed parallel efforts worldwide. The most recent is the Bloomberg LSE European City Leadership Initiative, whose inaugural class included 30 mayors and 60 senior officials from 17 countries.
Through these leadership programs, Antioch enters Bloomberg Philanthropies’ broader Government Innovation portfolio and global community of practice, tens of thousands of mayors and municipal officials strong, who draw on each other’s work to better the lives of the hundreds of millions of residents they collectively serve.
About Bloomberg Philanthropies:
Bloomberg Philanthropies invests in 700 cities and 150 countries around the world to ensure better, longer lives for the greatest number of people. The organization focuses on creating lasting change in five key areas: the Arts, Education, Environment, Government Innovation, and Public Health. Bloomberg Philanthropies encompasses all of Michael R. Bloomberg’s giving, including his foundation, corporate, and personal philanthropy as well as Bloomberg Associates, a philanthropic consultancy that advises cities around the world. In 2025, Bloomberg Philanthropies distributed $4.3 billion. For more information, please visit bloomberg.org, sign up for our newsletter, or follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Threads, Facebook and X.
About the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative:
The flagship Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative is at the center of more than 10 years of work led by Bloomberg Philanthropies to strengthen mayoral leadership and local government across the globe. Established with Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School, housed at the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard, the Initiative will have now served 447 mayors and over 3,000 senior municipal officials, including 8 in 10 of America’s big city mayors and 9 of England’s mayoral strategic authorities. Today, it is where many of the world’s most accomplished mayors come to learn—and to lead. For more information, please visit cityleadership.harvard.edu or visit us on LinkedIn and X.
About the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University:
Founded in 2021 with Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University serves a global community committed to improving public management, leadership, and governance. The Center’s cross-Harvard collaboration unites expertise focused on cities across disciplines and schools to produce research, train leaders, and develop resources for global use. The center is designed to have widespread impact on the future of cities, where more than half of the world’s people now live, by informing and inspiring local government leaders, scholars, students, and others who work to improve the lives of residents around the world. For more information, please visit cities.harvard.edu or follow us on Instagram,LinkedIn, and X.
