Takis P. Karantonis

Takis Karantonis is an economist and urban planner with more than 25 years of experience. He was first elected in the 2020 special election and re-elected in 2021 and 2025. He previously served as Vice Chair in 2024 and as Chair of the County Board in 2025.   

He 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 of the Northern Virginia Regional Commission, Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC), the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA), and the Operations Board of the Virginia Railway Express (VRE).  

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 22 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.