Delivering Alpha

Jacob J. Lew

Jack Lew
Source: U.S. Department of Treasury

Jack Lew was confirmed by the Senate on Feb. 27 as the 76th secretary of the Treasury.

He previously served as White House chief of staff. Prior to that role, Lew was director of the Office of Management and Budget, a position he held in President Bill Clinton's administration from 1998 to 2001. Before returning to the OMB in 2010, Lew joined the Obama administration as deputy secretary of state for management and resources.

Before joining the State Department, Lew was managing director and chief operating officer for two different Citigroup business units. Prior to that, he was executive vice president and chief operating officer of New York University, where he was responsible for budget, finance, and operations, and served as a professor of public administration. From 2004 through 2008, Lew served on the board of directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service and chaired its Management, Administration and Governance Committee.

As OMB director from 1998 to 2001, Lew led the administration budget team and served as a member of the National Security Council. During his tenure at OMB, the U.S. budget operated at a surplus for three consecutive years. Earlier, Lew served as OMB's deputy director and was a member of the negotiating team that reached a bipartisan agreement to balance the budget. As special assistant to the president from 1993 to 1994, Lew helped design Americorps, the national service program.

Lew began his career in Washington in 1973 as a legislative aide. From 1979 to 1987, he was a principal domestic policy advisor to House Speaker Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. when Lew served the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee as assistant director and then executive director. He was the speaker's liaison to the Greenspan Commission, which negotiated a bipartisan solution to extend the solvency of Social Security in 1983, and he was responsible for domestic and economic issues, including Medicare, budget, tax, trade, appropriations and energy issues.

Before joining the Obama administration, Lew co-chaired the advisory board for City Year New York and was on the boards of the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Brookings Institution Hamilton Project, and the Tobin Project. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Academy of Social Insurance, and of the bar in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.