Takis P. Karantonis

Takis P. Karantonis joined NVTC in June 2023 and represents Arlington County. He is also serving as a principal member of the VRE Operations Board.

Takis Karantonis is an economist and urban planner with more than 25 years of experience. He was first elected to the Arlington County Board in the 2020 special election and re-elected in 2021. He currently serves as the chair of the County Board.

Mr. Karantonis represents Arlington on the Board of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG), after having chaired MWCOG’s Region Forward Coalition, Climate, Energy and Environment Policy and Air Quality Committees, and served on the National Capital Transportation Planning Board and the Human Services Policy Committee. He is also a member the Northern Virginia Regional Commission (NVRC).

Born in Athens, Greece, Takis graduated from Berlin’s (Germany) Freie Universität with a master’s degree in urban and regional economics. He was a senior advisor for the Small Business Micro-Loan Program at the Enterprise Development Group of the Ethiopian Community Development Center and served from 2009-2016 as the executive director of the Columbia Pike Revitalization Organization (CPRO).

An Arlingtonian for 21 years, Takis served on several advisory commissions, is a former president of the Columbia Heights Civic Association, and a past chair of Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment (now EcoAction Arlington) and the Alliance for Housing Solutions (now Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance). He is a graduate of Leadership Arlington (2010) and the UVA Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership (2017).

Part of his immigrant experience is that he speaks and communicates, besides in his native Greek, also in English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Portuguese and Catalan. He lives with his family in the Columbia Heights neighborhood.