Jacob J. Lew
Ambassador to Israel

Jack Lew is Ambassador of the United States to Israel.  Nominated by President Biden, he was sworn in on November 2, 2023.  Ambassador Lew previously served as the 76th Secretary of the Treasury, White House Chief of Staff and twice as Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), under both President Clinton and President Obama.  He previously served in the Department of State as Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources under Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton.

After leaving the Department of the Treasury, Ambassador Lew served as Managing Partner at Lindsay Goldberg, a private equity firm, and on the faculty at School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, from which he is currently on leave.

Previously, Lew served as 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.  President George W. Bush nominated Ambassador Lew to serve on the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service, where he chaired its Management, Administration, and Governance Committee.

As OMB Director, Lew led the Administration budget team and served as a member of the National Security Council.  During his first 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 President Clinton from 1993 to 1994, Mr. 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 he 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.

After the Obama Administration, Lew served on the boards of the National Library of Israel, USA (where he was co-president); the National Committee on US China Relations (where he was chair); the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; and the Financial Services Volunteer Corps.  He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Social Insurance, and of the bar in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.

Ambassador Lew is a graduate of Harvard College (AB) and Georgetown University Law Center (JD).  He has received three honorary degrees.