TAMPA, Fla. — Tampa International Airport will have a new CEO in 2025. The Hillsborough County Aviation Authority Board approved Michael Stephens to take over next year.
Joe Lopano will retire in April, and Stephens will become the fourth CEO in TPA history and the first Black chief executive officer.
"I told him just before we were sitting up in my office, I said, 'You remind me of me 15 years ago.' And he's excited about everything that could happen, and so was I, and I still am, but I can't make those things happen anymore. It's time for someone new and younger to take over, and he's the guy, and I think he's going to do a wonderful job. I'm proud of him," said Lopano.
The two men have worked together for nearly a decade. Lopano calls Stephens one of the most brilliant and well-rounded professionals he's ever worked with.
"This man has incredibly massive shoes that he's left behind to fill, and so having that opportunity to kind of aspire, to put my stamp on it, building off of what he's done, it's starting to hit me," Stephens said. "It's starting to hit me."
Stephens has served on TPA's Executive Team for nine years and is the current Executive Vice President and General Counsel for TPA.
He's also a recognized expert in cybersecurity and data privacy, testifying twice before Congress.
"I'm digitally fluent in the future. Innovation is my realm. The curiosity that Joe just expressed that I have, whether it's from cybersecurity, whether it's people and processes, those are things that I'm passionate about, that I'm excited about, and I'm going to bridge the gap between the things that have been the discipline, the tried and true things with the future," said Stephens.
He's also excited about building partnerships in the community TPA serves.
"I've been in this community for over 20 years, even before Joe and the rest of the team got to the community. So I've seen how we've grown as a community, right?" Stephens said. "And so when you look at all those different experiences from two branches of the military, I used to be an air traffic controller, from higher education at USF to surface transportation to cyber, all those things that I've been able to do, it gives you a broad aperture."
And the future is bright.
"I want to leave this community whenever I pass the torch to whomever else much more connected, much more unified, having still the best airport in the entire country, if not the entire world, and making people say that Tampa is a place where I want to be that connects me to the world, that is connected together and that is unified a place that we can be proud of," said Stephens.
