Staff Bios
Harvey M. Rice, Esquire
Executive Director
Mr. Rice joined PICA as Executive Director in January 2014. Prior to this role, he served as the City of Philadelphia’s First Deputy City Controller and Chief of Staff. He was responsible for the management and oversight of 125 employees in the nine divisions within the Controller’s Office. Under Mr. Rice’s leadership, the City Controller’s Office uncovered more than $500 million in revenues and savings for the City of Philadelphia through audits, reports and investigations. The Controller’s Office also has received numerous national awards for its performance audits under his direction.
Prior to his appointment as City Controller, Mr. Rice served as the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Safe Schools Advocate for the School District of Philadelphia. He was appointed by then Governor Tom Ridge. As the Safe School Advocate, Mr. Rice was responsible for monitoring the School District’s compliance with the Safe Schools Act, as well as assisting and advocating on behalf of victims of school violence and ensuring the quick removal of violent and disruptive students from city schools.
Mr. Rice is an attorney with a law degree from the Beasley School of Law at Temple University. He served as Co-Chair for the Philadelphia Coalition for Victim Advocacy, and as a member of the Collaborative Response to Crime Victims.
Konstantinos "Gus" Tsakos, CPA
Deputy Director
Mr. Tsakos joined PICA as Deputy Director in December 2016, bringing 26 years of government auditing and accounting experience to the team after a long and successful career with the City of Philadelphia. Before joining PICA, he served briefly as Deputy Director for Finance for the Division of Aviation. He began his professional career in the City of Philadelphia’s Office of the Controller as an Auditor Trainee in 1990 and rose to Audit Director, the highest civil service position within the office. In this position, Mr. Tsakos was responsible for leading and conducting numerous financial statement opinion audits, compliance audits, performance audits and departmental audits on both the City of Philadelphia and the School District of Philadelphia, as well as the opinion on the City’s Five-Year Financial Plan.
Mr. Tsakos received his Bachelors of Business Administration from Temple University’s Fox School of Business with a major in Accounting. He is a Certified Public Accountant, and a Chartered Global Management Accountant. He is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants (PICPA), and the Mid-Atlantic Inter-Governmental Audit Forum (MAIAF). He currently serves as the Chairman and Local Representative of the MAIAF.
Daniel Esposito
Research and Policy Analyst
Mr. Esposito joined PICA as Research and Policy Analyst in February of 2016. Prior to this role, he completed Policy Fellowships at the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger and Philadelphia City Council while serving as the first Executive Director of ENGAGE Philadelphia, a student-run think-and-action tank founded at the University of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Esposito holds a B.S. in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was twice published in Penn Political Review, and an A.A. in Law, Government, and Politics from Camden County College, where he received the Charles Holcombe Award for Best Overall Essay. He remains active in Philadelphia’s nonprofit community.