Founder and Managing Partner
Adam Cox
Interim and contract executive management for California cities and special districts. Five agency boards have appointed him their chief executive of record.
Interim and contract executive management for California cities and special districts. Five agency boards have appointed him their chief executive of record.
Adam Cox founded Sectaris Partners in 2021 to do contract fractional and interim executive management for public agencies, and he has spent the years since inside the agencies themselves rather than advising from outside them. Three cities and two special districts have appointed him their chief executive of record. The work has run to disaster recovery, distressed administrations, major capital programs, utility finance, and economic development.
His approach is straightforward: sound fiscal management, open communication with boards and the public, and strict adherence to the law, even when that creates friction. He aims to leave every agency in stronger, healthier shape than he found it.
His expertise spans public-agency budgeting and operations analysis, capital project planning, board and executive-team governance, and strategic planning. A fuller account of the record, agency by agency, is at adamcoxleadership.com.
Led the district's recovery after the Dixie Fire destroyed most of Greenville: a workforce rebuilt, twelve million dollars in grants and state appropriations secured, and a mixed-use town center and public safety complex conceived and advanced. He led the district's settlement negotiations with PG&E over Dixie Fire damages; the district later announced a multimillion-dollar result.
Stabilized a chronically underfunded fire department, led two fire-protection parcel tax measures, resolved a state wastewater enforcement action by negotiated settlement, and negotiated the annexation that put fire and ambulance service on lasting footing. Clean audit opinions in every year of the engagement.
Ran full municipal operations for a small city: police oversight, finance, personnel, and infrastructure, with a long audit and compliance backlog worked down and complex litigation predating his tenure resolved within the city's insurance retention.
Restarted four fiscal years of overdue state audits, reconstructed the town's books with independent audit and CPA support, rebuilt the administrative team, and reopened the town's standing with the state agencies whose water, sewer, and transportation funding had stalled.
Served on the emergency contract management team that triaged a fiscal crisis for a city spending well beyond its revenue and weeks from losing insurance coverage. The city stayed insured, bankruptcy was never filed, and its debt fell during the engagement.
The decade before Sectaris was spent on the other side of the same problems. In county service, Adam worked the administrative and fiscal side of a large capital improvement program: accessibility compliance, facility upgrades, federal consent-decree obligations, real property acquisition, and multi-year capital budgeting.
Before that he held chief executive roles in the association and economic development world, running a regional business advocacy organization and a construction industry association. That work put him across the table from cities, counties, and school districts on permitting, development fees, and strategic planning, and it is where he learned to read a board and build consensus among people who did not start out agreeing.
Adam served eleven years as an elected school board member and fifteen years as a trustee of a mosquito abatement district, which means he has sat on the governing side of the table as well as the staff side. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Political Science from Arizona State University, where he is completing a Master of Legal Studies with a concentration in contract law.
For inquiries about interim and contract management, strategic planning, or any engagement, reach out and we will respond promptly.