Mayor G.T. Bynum
Vice Chair
Sworn in as the 40th Mayor of Tulsa in 2016, Mayor G.T. Bynum is using data and innovation to bring people together and make our city globally competitive. To accomplish this, Mayor Bynum is focused on fiscal responsibility, public safety, infrastructure, and equality of opportunity for all Tulsans. This approach has already yielded the successful recruitment of the two largest new employers in the history of Tulsa, while outpacing both the state and the nation in job growth.
Mayor Bynum worked closely with the Tulsa City Council to fund the sharpest increase in police hiring in Tulsa history, while simultaneously implementing one of the most comprehensive community policing programs in the United States. Under his Administration, the City opened its own municipal jail with an emphasis on innovative diversion programs while also opening the Tulsa Sobering Center, which offers treatment for those suffering from drug and alcohol addiction. Mayor Bynum led Tulsa to pilot the Better Way program, which provides honest work and social service assistance for the city’s panhandler and homeless population.
Mayor Bynum has made equality of opportunity a cornerstone of his Administration. Under his leadership, the City established the Tulsa Equality Indicators report which uses data to measure inequality across a variety of factors. He established the Mayor’s Office of Resilience and Equity to implement the Resilient Tulsa Strategy, the city’s first strategic plan to address issues of racial disparity. Mayor Bynum launched the New Tulsans Initiative, which is focused on making Tulsa a beacon of freedom and opportunity for immigrants all around the world.
Mayor Bynum’s Administration is simultaneously implementing the largest streets improvement program in Tulsa history (Improve Our Tulsa) and the largest economic development capital improvements program in Tulsa history (Vision Tulsa). He continues to receive national recognition for his initiatives to empower everyday citizens through programs like the Urban Data Pioneers and the Civic Innovation Fellowship.
Because of his leadership and vision for Tulsa, Mayor Bynum was selected for the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative in 2018 and was presented the International Cities of Service Engaged Cities Award. His TED Talk on replacing partisanship with policy has been viewed over 940,000 times by people all around the world.
Prior to his election as Mayor, Bynum served for eight years on the Tulsa City Council. During that time, he was elected as the youngest City Council Chairman in Tulsa history.
During his time as a city councilor, he led the successful effort to enact the largest streets improvement package in the city’s history, authored the first city sales tax cut in Tulsa history, doubled the number of police academies to increase manpower, authored legislation creating the first municipal rainy day fund in Oklahoma and coordinated efforts to establish the first municipal veterans treatment court in the United States.
Before serving as Mayor of Tulsa, Bynum served as the managing partner of Capitol Ventures, and before that worked in the United States Senate for Senators Don Nickles and Tom Coburn. Bynum is a proud graduate of two institutions operated by the Augustinian Order of the Catholic Church: Cascia Hall Preparatory School in Tulsa and Villanova University, where he served as Student Body President.
Mayor Bynum comes from a family dedicated to public service and he and his wife, Susan, are the proud parents of Robert and Annabel – the sixth generation of Bynums to call Tulsa home.
