About

Maud Maron is the founder and President of ThirdRail, an Ideas Consultancy that creates environments where ideas, not ideologies, work in service of strategy and organizational success. Maud founded ThirdRail with the mission to expand cognitive and viewpoint diversity in workplaces with the simple yet potent directive “Ideas are Powerful, Unlock More.” 

As a political commentator, she writes frequently for the NYPost and also for Newsweek, The Free Press, Daily News, City Journal, The New York Sun, The Post Millennial and Little Africa News. And has appeared on numerous television outlets including America Reports, America's Newsroom, Fox and Friends, Tucker Carlson, The Megyn Kelly Show, American Thought Leaders, Inside City Hall on NY1, and the Next Revolution with Steve Hilton.

Maud began her career as a public defender at the Legal Aid Society in 1998 where she worked as a criminal defense staff attorney in Manhattan and the Bronx and as the citiwide Director of Training. She taught as an Associate Clinical Professor of Law in Criminal Defense at Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University.  

She is the former president of Manhattan's largest School Board, CEC District 2, where she successfully campaigned to maintain merit-based admissions at NYC’s Specialized High Schools. Her education advocacy led to a high profile cancellation by her employer chronicled by Bari Weiss in the Free Press in print and podcast. 

Maud subsequently co-founded PLACE NYC, a parent-lead, education advocacy organization that quickly changed the education landscape in NYC with its pro-merit agenda. She also founded the NYC chapter of the not-for-profit FAIR while on its Board of Advisors and later served as its Interim Executive Director. 

She ran for Congress in 2022 and for City Council in 2021 as a moderate Democrat before becoming an Independent. 

Maud and her husband Juan Pablo live in lower Manhattan and have four children who attend NYC public schools.