Joel I. Klein

Chief Policy and Strategy Officer of Oscar Health & former Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education

Joel I. Klein serves on the ExcelinEd Board of Directors. He is the former Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education where he oversaw a system of over 1,600 schools with 1.1 million students, 136,000 employees and a $22 billion budget. Klein presently serves as the Chief Policy and Strategy Officer at Oscar Health Insurance Corporation.

In January 2016, Joel I. Klein became the Chief Policy and Strategy Officer at Oscar Health Insurance Corporation.

Prior to that, Joel Klein was the CEO of Amplify and Executive Vice President at News Corporation, taking the position in January 2011. Effective October 2015, he became Senior Strategic Adviser at Amplify through the end of December 2016.

Mr. Klein was Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education where he oversaw a system of over 1,600 schools with 1.1 million students, 136,000 employees and a $22 billion budget. He launched Children First in 2002, a comprehensive reform strategy that has brought coherence and capacity to the system and resulted in significant increases in student performance.

He is a former Chairman and CEO of Bertelsmann, Inc., a media company, served as Assistant U.S. Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice until September 2000, and was Deputy White House Counsel to President Clinton from 1993-1995. Mr. Klein entered the Clinton administration after 20 years of public and private legal work in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Klein is a member of the Board of Directors of News Corporation, Amplify, Boston Properties, Inc., and the Board of Advisors of Point72. He also serves on the board of several non-profit organizations, including Teach for America, Foundation for Excellence in Education, Board of Visitors of Columbia College and is Chair of StudentsFirst New York.

Mr. Klein received his BA from Columbia University where he graduated magna cum laude in 1967, and earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1971, also graduating magna cum laude. He has received honorary degrees from Amherst College, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Fordham Law School, Georgetown Law Center, Macaulay Honors College at CUNY, Manhattanville College, New York Law School, Pace University and St. John’s School of Education.

He was selected by Time Magazine as one of Ten People who Mattered in 1999, by U.S. News and World Report as One of America’s 20 Best Leaders in 2006, and received the NYU Lewis Rudin Award in 2009, the Manhattan Institute Alexander Hamilton Award in 2011, and the Columbia College Alexander Hamilton Award in 2013.

He is the author of Lessons of Hope: How to Fix Our Schools released November 2014.