2023 40 Under 40: Audrey Denis, MBA

One word to describe yourself: Passionate

Alma Mater: Georgetown University

Fast fact about yourself: I have taken public transit on six of seven continents

What’s your best experience on transit and what made it memorable?: I just finished my MBA part-time, taking my classes at night. Because I don’t have a car, having the experience of using DC’s transit network to get to school was an important reminder of just why it’s so important – it connects people to opportunity, to community, and to where they want to go.

Audrey Denis’ vision of transit’s ideal future is one that can be universally utilized by everyone to meet at last part, if not all, of their mobility needs. Many of the building blocks of this future exist today, and the work that she does at Cubic Transportation Systems seeks to transform the transit experience for all passengers, no matter their origin or destination.

In her role leading strategy and strategic partnerships at Cubic Transportation Systems (Cubic), Denis’ overarching goal is to expand transportation technology in as many places as possible, helping people get to where they need to go efficiently and safely and providing the tools for agencies and cities to tackle pressing challenges like congestion and carbon emissions. Denis believes equitable and accessible transportation is critical to thriving communities and will be central to addressing climate change and other key societal challenges.

Based in Washington, D.C., Denis is a non-driver and an avid transit rider herself. While she is passionate about public transit and how it can be a critical resource for connecting communities to opportunity, she also recognizes that being a non-driver isn’t always a viable option based on where people live. Part of her work at Cubic revolves around making public transit the mode of choice for users, leveraging technology to connect services for comprehensive journeys and supporting affordability through policies like fare capping.

Building on her understanding and passion for mobility, Denis recently joined Cubic’s executive leadership team leading strategic partnerships. Denis focuses on building the right customer and commercial partnerships to bring mobility technology such as contactless payments and traffic optimization to accelerate equitable transport for all. Unlocking the future of mobility requires industry alignment and close collaboration to deliver best in class customer experience and meet climate goals.

Denis is keen to push technology further for these goals. She champions the future of digital mobility, the digitalization and integration of multi-modal mobility management and operations systems to achieve policy goals and a smoother, faster, more optimized network. This system of systems approach coordinates each element of the mobility system to rebalance supply and demand, ensure easy access across transportation modes, and, ultimately, create a seamless journey through active network management.

To further this vision, Denis travels the globe speaking as a thought leader on digital mobility and mobility on demand. In 2022 alone, Denis participated in a number of global events, including presenting on digital mobility at ITS Europe, ITS Australia, and CoMotion in Miami.

Denis has also worked closely within ITS America on digital mobility, representing Cubic in the ITS America digital infrastructure working group. The working group brings together voices of experts in the public and private sectors to define a digital infrastructure strategy and mainstream approaches to investment in digital infrastructure, mimicking how stakeholders approach physical infrastructure. Denis also represents Cubic in a variety of transportation organizations, including:

• The Mobility Management Committee, American Public Transportation Association
• Ticketing in MaaS Working Group, UITP
• MOD Alliance Policy Working Group, ITS America
• WTS Women in Transportation
• MobiDataLab Reference Group

She was instrumental in developing Cubic’s internal process for supporting agencies in requesting federal grants, developing resources like white papers and webinars for public agencies that broke down the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to educate on available funding and provide guidance for securing investment for innovative solutions for their communities. Denis’ grant work has taken her all over the country, including an education session for traffic engineers in Alabama on how to apply for federal grants.

Denis’ role at Cubic has presented the opportunity to travel and take transit around the world, and she hopes that her work provides similar opportunities for other travelers as well. No matter where commuters begin their journey, Denis wants there to be accessible transit to get them to their destination.

Is there a specific experience that led you to where you are today?

A personal passion for transit has led to today. I grew up in New York City, and if my family was going anywhere, we were getting on the subway. It got me to appointments, to parks, and to my first day of work. Commuting to work on the subway alongside my parents was a rite of passage, as was the first time I got to ride it alone when I was little. The subway was an important part of connecting me to opportunities and providing freedom growing up, whether that was going to the movies or Coney Island with friends or delivering me from Penn Station when I visit home now. The opportunity and access that transit gave me inspired a passion for creating – and expanding – the same for other people.

Professionally, my passion started in transit data when I joined Cubic on the data team, which allowed me to manage a project and demo Cubic’s capabilities at an industry conference. It was in speaking to industry stakeholders that I realized just how vital technology was for improving traffic and transit operations. Helping infrastructure get smarter and more efficient for agencies, cities, and citizens like me ignited my passion to champion the stories of “why” transportation technology can be so transformative. That excitement has been fueling me ever since.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

The thing I enjoy the most is making an impact on people's lives; being able to take a little bit of stress out of their lives by making transportation more efficient and really focusing on the way that our solutions help to reduce congestion and improve equity and accessibility. I enjoy the tangible elements of the job, where every day I’m helping transit agencies operate more efficiently and helping people get where they need to go more seamlessly. I also enjoy thinking about ‘how do we deliver a better customer experience so that our agencies are able to operate more efficiently?’ I have a passion for helping agencies deliver a better customer experience to riders – because I am one.

What’s the most challenging part of your job?

I wear a lot of hats and get pulled in a lot of different directions so staying focused can be a challenge — but it's a good challenge. In strategy, some of our big tasks are asking ourselves, ‘how do we make sure that we're innovating?’, ‘how do we make sure that we are proactively meeting the needs of the market?’ Usually, we are solving really exciting problems, but it can also be hard and requires out of the box thinking. Also realizing we can’t solve every problem at once, and having to prioritize where we use our resources and focus is a challenge I face daily.

Accomplishment you’re most proud of and why?

My proudest accomplishment was joining the executive leadership team at CTS in 2022 and having the opportunity to contribute through a seat at the table during key conversations moving Cubic, and mobility, forward. Every day I’m excited to learn from my colleagues’ deep experience and passion in delivering solutions to cities around the world, and to champion how important strategic partnerships are for the success of our company. I am proud to be in a position to think critically about how we bring innovative solutions to our existing and new customers. At the same time as assuming this position, I was juggling finishing my MBA and planning my wedding – so it’s been an exciting year, and I’ve been grateful for the mentorship and support from my fellow Cubes.

Best advice/tip/best practice to share from your area of expertise?

As a strategist, I work with a lot of different people in a lot of different areas of our organization. The people I interact with can range from people on our product teams, our engineers or services teams, our business development teams and more, and something that I've learned is to really listen and hear what everyone across all the different parts of our organization has to say. Everyone has a valuable perspective — whether they’re junior or senior; new or an old-hand; on the front lines of programs or in the back office – really taking the time to understand all the perspectives from across the organization is what ultimately makes us strong.