{"id":2,"date":"2012-10-08T16:24:51","date_gmt":"2012-10-08T20:24:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jeffmerritt.info\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2026-08-13T14:35:51","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T18:35:51","slug":"about-jeff","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jeffmerritt.info\/?page_id=2","title":{"rendered":"ABOUT JEFF"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Jeff Merritt is an executive leader with more than 25 years of experience bringing business, government, philanthropy and civil society together to tackle complex economic, social and environmental challenges.<\/p>\n

Most recently, Jeff served as Head of Urban Transformation and a member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum<\/a>, where he founded the Centre for Urban Transformation<\/a> and built partnerships that connect global expertise, investment and innovation with local priorities. His work included creating Yes\/Cities<\/a>, a place-based partnership model that mobilized more than $100 million to grow San Francisco\u2019s green economy<\/a> and advance climate goals and is now scaling across a global network of cities. He also established the Davos Baukultur Alliance<\/a> with the Government of Switzerland and led initiatives spanning net-zero and nature-positive cities,<\/a> responsible technology<\/a>, local economic growth and the experience economy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Previously, Jeff served as New York City\u2019s first Director of Innovation<\/a>, helping establish the Mayor\u2019s Office of Technology and Innovation and leading initiatives that reshaped how the city approached infrastructure, innovation and public-private collaboration. His work included LinkNYC<\/a>, the world\u2019s largest and fastest municipal Wi-Fi network; Neighborhood Innovation Labs<\/a>; and the launch of .nyc<\/a>. He also helped advance the historic rollout of universal pre-kindergarten<\/a> across the nation\u2019s largest school district.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Jeff founded Grassroots Initiative<\/a>, a pioneering organization that opened access to political leadership by giving first-time candidates and historically underrepresented communities the tools and infrastructure to run for office. He grew the organization into New York City\u2019s largest election firm by number and diversity of candidates served, supporting more than 600 campaigns across party lines and helping elect the city\u2019s first Sikh public officials<\/a>. In partnership with the New York City Department of Education, Jeff also organized the first entirely online public election<\/a> in U.S. history, cutting costs by 60% while significantly increasing participation.<\/p>\n

Jeff\u2019s earlier career also included leading initiatives on government reform and corporate accountability, advising global business leaders on public-private approaches to global health, and supporting U.S. diplomatic and democratization efforts in the Balkans. He began his career with the U.S. Department of State and holds a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University and a bachelor\u2019s degree from the University of Michigan.<\/p>\n

Across these roles, Jeff\u2019s work has centered on a consistent idea: bringing unlikely partners together to turn ambitious ideas into practical solutions and lasting impact.<\/p>\n

Click here to download a high-resolution headshot<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeff Merritt is an executive leader with more than 25 years of experience bringing business, government, philanthropy and civil society together to tackle complex economic, social and environmental challenges. Most recently, Jeff served as Head of Urban Transformation and a member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum, where he founded the Centre […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffmerritt.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffmerritt.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffmerritt.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffmerritt.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffmerritt.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/jeffmerritt.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":194,"href":"https:\/\/jeffmerritt.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions\/194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffmerritt.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}