Jim Shelton is the President of Education at the Chan Zuckerberg Foundation. Shelton served as the former President and Chief Impact Officer of 2U former; the deputy secretary and chief operating officer of the US Department of Education. In this role, Shelton led a range of management, policy, and program functions in support of educational access and excellence. He has focused most of his career on accelerating and scaling innovation, most recently in the public and social sectors. While in government, he served as the executive director of the president’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative and served on and led multiple interagency efforts focused on poverty reduction, economic development, entrepreneurship, and increased opportunity, including the National Science and Technology Council. Shelton began his career developing computer systems and later served as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company. After McKinsey, he joined Knowledge Universe Inc. where he invested in and operated a range of education-related businesses until he cofounded LearnNow, a company dedicated to providing high quality schools in low-income communities. Shelton was also a partner at NewSchools Venture Fund and then the program director for education at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where he managed investments, such as Small Schools of Choice, which targeted increased high-school and college graduation rates. He has chaired numerous nonprofit boards and led domestic and international social-sector initiatives ranging from economic development to voter education in emerging democracies.

Shelton holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Morehouse College as well as master’s degrees in business administration and education from Stanford GSB and GSE.

The latest from Jim Shelton:

“We Already Know How to Close the Achievement Gap,” Education Week, Jim Shelton, September 29, 2015 – (printable version)