Michael Kirkopoulos

Michael Kirkopoulos is a seasoned municipal executive with extensive experience in strategic leadership, government relations, communications, economic development and complex project delivery. As Chief Administrative Officer of the Town of Lincoln, he has led a growing municipality through significant change and investment, advancing infrastructure and economic priorities while protecting community character, strengthening partnerships and maintaining a strong focus on accountability, service and public trust.

A new park gives children a place to play. A childcare facility supports families. A housing project gives someone a place to call home. A project approval creates an opportunity for a business owner. For Michael Kirkopoulos, Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) at the Town of Lincoln, these are reminders that decisions in municipal government have a direct impact on people’s lives, and that immediacy is what makes municipal government so tangible to Kirkopoulos.

“The proximity to the people we serve is what makes local government different and impactful,” says Kirkopoulos.

This belief was shaped by years of working in municipal government. Prior to joining Lincoln, Michael spent nearly two decades with the City of Hamilton, gaining broad experience across communications, government relations, major projects and economic development. Working within a large and complex municipal organization provided a strong foundation in strategic decision-making, stakeholder engagement and navigating competing priorities. That experience shaped his leadership approach; one that believes effective municipal leadership requires sound judgment, financial discipline, collaboration and the ability to bring people together around a clear direction.

He carried those lessons to Lincoln when he became CAO in 2015. Since then, the town has seen significant growth and change across infrastructure, economic development, tourism, community facilities and government partnerships. For Kirkopoulos, the challenge has been not simply managing that change, but ensuring Lincoln can grow without losing what makes the community distinctive.

Preserving Community and Growth

Lincoln’s growth brings competing needs. The town is home to agricultural lands, wineries, small hamlets, rural and urban areas and more than one downtown, all held together by a strong sense of community.

At the same time, people need housing, businesses need places to invest and the town needs roads, water, wastewater, recreation and community infrastructure to support a growing population. Kirkopoulos does not see growth and preserving Lincoln’s character as an either-or choice. He believes good planning should allow the community to grow while protecting what is important.

Under his leadership, the town has invested in its downtowns, protected and promoted agriculture and tourism, built infrastructure before or alongside growth, explored different forms of housing and invested in parks, recreation and public spaces.

The acquisition of the former Beamsville District Secondary School property illustrates that long-term outlook. Kirkopoulos and his team recognized an opportunity to acquire a significant community asset and preserve it while considering its future. For him, leadership sometimes means recognizing an opportunity early and preserving it long enough for the right answer to emerge.

Partnerships Built on Continuity

Supporting a growing community requires significant investment, yet Lincoln, with a population of approximately 30,000, operates with considerably less financial capacity and organizational scale than larger municipalities. In many respects, leading change in a smaller municipality can be more demanding, requiring leaders to achieve ambitious outcomes with fewer resources and less specialized capacity. Kirkopoulos and his team recognized that strong partnerships therefore could not simply be activated when the Town needed funding or support. They made a deliberate investment in building sustained relationships with the Niagara Region, the Province, the federal government, neighbouring municipalities, businesses and community organizations, creating the partnerships and leverage needed to move priorities forward.

 

The proximity to the people we serve is what makes local government different and impactful.

Those relationships have helped bring more than $120 million in investment into Lincoln over the past decade from senior levels of government, supporting infrastructure, transportation, community facilities and other priorities. More recently, an additional $41 million irrigation investment involving the agricultural sector, multiple municipalities, the Niagara Region and senior levels of government was secured. These initiatives illustrate the scale of collaboration required to advance projects that extend beyond the boundaries of a single municipality. Combined with strong partnerships with Brock University, Niagara College and the Vineland Research & Innovation Centre, they have helped position Lincoln as a leader in municipal innovation and collaboration.

“The best partnerships are usually the ones where, after the project succeeds, everyone can legitimately say they had a hand in it,” he says.

Residents do not care whose jurisdiction a problem falls under as long as it gets solved. Good municipal leadership, in his view, is about identifying who needs to be at the table and getting them there, reflecting his priority on outcomes rather than credit.

Trust as the Operating Standard

Government partners are not the only relationships Kirkopoulos has had to build carefully. Trust with residents and stakeholders remains just as central to how he leads. For him, transparency does not mean everyone will agree with every decision. It means people should understand how the municipality arrived at it.

Communication is tailored to people’s preferences through council reports, public engagement, newsletters, social media, budget information, community meetings and the municipality’s podcast.

Kirkopoulos keeps this communication honest, even when that means acknowledging uncertainty or delivering advice that Council and the community may not want to hear. Social media, at times, adds to the difficulty, reducing a decision built on years of planning, financing and legislation to a single sentence online. In such moments, he believes in putting the facts on the table, treating people respectfully and disengaging at the end of the day.

Taken together, these choices reflect the breadth of Kirkopoulos’ leadership. His tenure has combined long-term community planning with tangible investment, intergovernmental relationships with a focus on shared outcomes and organizational leadership grounded in trust and accountability. His contribution to Lincoln is therefore reflected not in one project, but in the way the municipality has approached growth, infrastructure, partnerships and community building over more than a decade.

Leaving Behind a Better Future

To aspiring CAO leaders, Kirkopoulos’ advice is to build the culture before they need it. A crisis will be inevitable, be it a financial challenge, a difficult Council issue or an organizational problem. What those moments require is trust between everyone involved. That has to be built beforehand by hiring good people, giving them room to do their jobs, holding them accountable, supporting them during difficult moments and allowing employees to challenge you.

He also cautions against confusing activity with progress. Municipalities are busy environments where one can fill every hour of the day and still not move the organization forward.

Kirkopoulos therefore encourages asking a simple question: Are we actually making the community better? If the answer is no, then the work needs to be reconsidered.

Progress, however, takes different forms. Sometimes it means moving quickly, and at other times, it means slowing down, listening more and reconsidering the approach. Leadership is not about having every answer, he says. It is about creating an environment where people feel comfortable asking difficult questions and working together to find the way forward.

As Kirkopoulos completes more than a decade at the Town of Lincoln, he sees the role of CAO as stewardship, not ownership. Every CAO inherits an organization shaped by decisions made long before they arrived. Their responsibility is to improve what they can and eventually pass it on in better shape.

Looking back, he does not remember reports or meetings. He remembers the people, the infrastructure finally being built, community spaces filled with families and partnerships that started with a conversation.

Ultimately, he hopes to leave Lincoln with greater confidence in what it can become. That record of sustained municipal leadership, community-focused planning, collaborative investment and public stewardship provides the basis for Kirkopoulos’ recognition as Chief Administrative Officer of the Year in Canada 2026.