Kathleen Joyce. Photo courtesy City of Boston
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Kathleen Joyce, who has served as the chair of the Boston Licensing Board for the last eight years, will step down from the post next month and be replaced at the helm by Mattapan resident Ava Callender Concepcion. The news will be announced officially by Mayor Wu and Joyce during an event in Mattapan Square later today.
Concepcion will take on the new role on Nov. 4, spelling Joyce, a Dorchester woman who has led the board through major changes, including the distribution of more than 200 new liquor licenses in neighborhoods across the city.
Joyce, who also serves as the city’s executive director of Consumer Affairs and Licensing, will exit city government after a tenure that was hailed by Wu officials, including the mayor.
“We are grateful for Kathleen Joyce’s years of service guiding the Consumer Affairs and Licensing boards’ critical work to help entrepreneurs open and expand their businesses across the City, and we look forward to seeing Ava Callender Concepcion build on this progress,” Mayor Wu said in a statement.
“I think Kathleen Joyce has done an incredible job of making the board more accessible to everyone,” Concepion told The Reporter on Monday. “I see my job as someone who wants to continue the amplification of the resources available.”
Concepcion, 38, is the former acting chair of the state’s Cannabis Control Commission (CCC) and one-time Boston City Council candidate. She has served on the Licensing Board as a commissioner since August. She was raised in Mattapan, graduated from Boston Latin Academy and resides in Mattapan with her husband, David, and their two sons.
The Licensing Board chair is a full-time city position.
In her statement, Mayor Wu said Callender Concepcion “knows our neighborhoods inside and out, and understands that our work must center the people and businesses that anchor our communities. I’m thrilled to appoint her to this critical position and look forward to her leadership in bolstering our local businesses, strengthening our economy, and creating opportunity citywide.”
“I’m excited for the opportunity to focus on my hometown and really excited to help businesses here thrive and be supported,” said Concepcion.
“It’s a culmination of experiences for me. I see this as putting on my regulatory hat and my attorney experience hat, but more so putting my community and neighborhood experience to work. I’m the third generation of four generations in Mattapan. I see this as a good opportunity to use my role and past experiences in what I know well – the city of Boston’s neighborhoods.”
Concepcion is a graduate of New England Law in Boston and has been a member of the Massachusetts Bar since 2016. She holds a B.A. in Criminology from Johnson C. Smith University.
“Being an attorney, you are guided by the law so in every decision you use the law as your guidepost first and foremost,” she said. “It’s definitely helpful because when we’re making determinations, whether for a violation or a transaction, what I do is look through the governing provisions and make a determination on it.”
A key emphasis on the Licensing Board recently has been the Legislature’s 2024 law that created 225 new liquor permits, with 195 of them being neighborhood-based to push more restaurants in neighborhoods like Dorchester and Mattapan to have a sit-down restaurant experience with alcoholic drinks as an option.
Under Joyce, the board has been busy processing new licenses for establishments ready to make the jump and recruiting and preparing others needing help to get to that point.
Restaurants like Marabou Café in Mattapan, the site of today’s announcement, have benefitted from that effort, gaining a liquor license last summer and working to translate that into a Mattapan Square sit-down dining experience. Concepcion said her next step is to find more places that can thrive with help from the board.
“My hope is for there to be more Marabou Cafes because they are doing great and it would be nice to have more of these places in neighborhoods where it can be hard to find a sit-down dining place,” she said. “I look forward to helping more people and more businesses replicate what Marabou has done.
Concepcion was first appointed to the public safety seat on the CCC by then-Attorney General Maura Healey in 2021. In these roles, she helped govern a $7 billion industry with more than 640 licensees and led a 135- person agency.
Before that, she served as the director of Governmental Affairs and External Partnerships for Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office and as counsel to the Senate Chair of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary.
She also served in the office of former US Majority Whip James E. Clyburn and at the Massachusetts Appellate Tax Board.
Concepcion is the granddaughter of former Mattapan state Rep. Willie Mae Allen, who served two terms at the State House from 2007-2011.
Kathleen Joyce was sworn in by then-Boston Mayor Marty Walsh in 2018. City of Boston photo
Copyright © 2026 Boston Neighborhood News, Inc. This content may not be re-published or re-used without written permission.
