Maxine Griffith began her career as director of a community planning & design center in Oakland California and as an architectural designer for the firm of Hardy Holtzman Pfeiffer. She currently serves as Senior Advisor to the President of Columbia University and teaches Urban Planning at Columbia's Graduate School of Architecture Planning & Preservation. Maxine Griffith also maintains a small consulting practice.

Prior to her present position, she was a Columbia Executive Vice President and a key member of the team planning for the university's new campus in Manhattanville, She led the project through the complex city and state approval processes and also negotiated the historic Manhattanville community benefits agreement.

As Executive Director of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission and Deputy Mayor for Strategic planning, Griffith coordinated all planning activities and managed the Capital Budget process. She worked in the Clinton administration at the Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) first as the Regional Director for New York and New Jersey and then as Assistant Deputy Secretary. From 1988 to 1996 she was Principal of Griffith Planning & Design, a firm providing planning, design and development services to a broad list of public and private clients.

Ms. Griffith served a six year term on the New York City Planning Commission. She has also served on the New York State Commission on the Restoration of the Capital, the Planning Accreditation Board and on the Boards of the American Planning Association and the Lincoln Land Institute and Foundation. She now serves on the Boards of Directors of the Architectural League of New York, the Regional Plan Association, Atlantic Fellows for Racial Equity and SEEDs, an organization establishing schools and libraries in West Africa. Griffith has also worked extensively in developing countries and in China.

Maxine Griffith was born in Harlem, New York. She holds a Master of Architecture degree from the University of California, Berkeley and certificates in Urban Planning and Real Estate Finance from Harvard University's Graduate School of Design; she has won three national American Planning Association Awards. 

In addition to her appointment at Columbia, Griffith has taught city planning and urban design at New York University and the University of Pennsylvania. She a member of the National Organization of Minority Architects and is an accredited member of the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP). In 2018 Griffith was elected to the AICP College of Fellows.