Jon Schnur
Executive Chairman and Co-Founder of America Achieves
Jon Schnur is advisor to the Obama presidential campaign. Jon also is the co-founder and Executive Chairman of America Achieves - a non-profit organization helping communities and states leverage leadership, policy, and practice to build high-quality educational systems. He also advises philanthropists seeking to improve education, including Bloomberg Philanthropies. Jon is a board member of New Leaders as well as Be the Change and its Opportunity Nation initiative to increase economic mobility in America. He also serves on the Aspen Institute’s jury for their Prize for Community College Excellence.
In 2000, Jon co-founded New Leaders for New Schools and served as its CEO until last year. Jon took a leave of absence from New Leaders in 2008 and 2009 to the Obama for America presidential campaign and a senior advisor to President Obama’s presidential transition team and to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. In the 1990s, Jon served as President Clinton’s White House Associate Director for Educational Policy, Senior Policy Advisor on Education to Vice President Gore, and special assistant to U.S. Secretary of Education Dick Riley.
Jon and his wife Elisa live in Montclair, New Jersey and have three young children.