President of the Board, Public Intelligence Inc., Publisher, The Hightower Lowdown
San Francisco, CA

Jay Harris has had a 35-year career in the business of journalism, working for much of that time with independent, nonprofit organizations that rely on both commercial and philanthropic revenues to support their reporting. Between 1991 and 2009, Jay was the publisher of Mother Jones, the investigative news organization, and, from 1998, the president/CEO of Mother Jones’ non-profit parent. During his tenure, Mother Jones won three National Magazine Awards for General Excellence.

Between 2012 and 2014, Jay was publisher of The American Prospect, working on a turnaround of that venerable policy journal. Jay is currently the publisher of The Hightower Lowdown, a monthly print and digital newsletter with a substantial “red state” following. Before joining Mother Jones, Harris was an executive with Newsweek International in New York and Hong Kong.

Jay has an AB from Duke University and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. He is vice chair of the board of Free Speech TV and serves on the executive board of the First Amendment Coalition and on the communications board of Human Rights Watch. He has also served on the boards of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and of IMAG, the independent magazine group of the Magazine Publishers of America. In 2006 Harris helped found The Media Consortium, an alliance of independent media working together to extend the reach and impact of their journalism. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Marcia Cohen, the Senior Associate Dean for Finance & Administration at the Stanford School of Medicine.