Jack Markell

Chair | National Governor's Association

Jack Markell served from 2009 to 2017 as the governor of Delaware. During his tenure, Markell led significant investments in improved early childhood education, language immersion programs, heightened college access for low-income students, and some of the most aggressive workforce development efforts in the country. Markell was selected by his peers to serve as chair of both the Democratic Governors Association and the bi-partisan National Governors Association.  Previously, Markell served as Delaware’s state treasurer. Prior to public service, Markell helped lead the wireless technology revolution as the thirteenth employee at Nextel (a name he coined), where he served as senior vice president, corporate development. He also worked at Comcast Corporation and McKinsey and Company. Markell serves on the national board of directors of Jobs for America’s Graduates Upstream USA and as a trustee of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Markell was born in 1960 in Newark, Delaware. He earned an undergraduate degree from Brown University and an MBA from the University of Chicago. Markell is a Henry Crown fellow and a Rodel fellow at the Aspen Institute. He and his wife, Carla, reside in Wilmington. Their two children, Molly and Michael, are in their twenties.