Jeffrey Robert Lehman (born 7 June 1975) is a Canadian politician and economist who served as the 46th mayor of Barrie from 2010 to 2022. He was also the chair of Ontario's Big City Mayor's organization, consisting of the mayors of Ontario's 29 largest cities. Lehman began his career as an academic, teaching urban and housing economics at the UK's prestigious London School of Economics. He had a ten-year career as an economist and built a consulting firm, MKI, in Ottawa and Toronto, before entering politics. Lehman represented Barrie's Ward 2 as a city councillor from 2006 to 2010 before being elected mayor in October 2010. He defeated the incumbent in a race that included several more established local politicians. From 2014 to 2017, and since 2021, Lehman has served as chair of Ontario's Big City Mayors. Lehman holds a Chartered Director (C.Dir) designation and has served on the boards of directors of several organizations over his career in public service, including the Board of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. In 2017, Lehman teamed up with the mayors of Mississauga, Hamilton, Markham, Vaughan, and St. Catharines to support the "mega-merger" of electricity companies in those cities to create Alectra, the second largest community-owned utility in North America; Lehman is a founding director of the company and remains on the board of directors. Early life and education Lehman was born in Toronto, before moving to Barrie in 1978. He attended Allandale Heights Public School, and Barrie Central Collegiate Institute. He holds a bachelor's degree from Queen's University, and a master's degree from the London School of Economics (LSE), graduating with first class honours. Lehman joined the faculty of the new Cities Programme at the LSE in 1998, and worked for 3 years in London as an academic before returning to Canada in late 1999. His parents, Bob and Joan Lehman, founded Lehman & Associates, a land use planning firm, in 1979; Jeff worked in this family business while he was growing up. Bob is a Fellow of the Canadian Institute of Planners and has worked as a consulting planner, focusing initially on public policy work in Ontario, ultimately working across the country. Joan was CFO of the family business before taking on a series of community building projects, including serving as the chair of the Building Committees for both the MacLaren Art Centre and Gilda's Club, a cancer support charity