Benjamin Todd Jealous

Benjamin Todd Jealous is a Partner at Kapor Capital, where he invests in seed-stage startup companies that use technology to solve social problems such as making poverty less expensive, high quality education more accessible, and living wage jobs more prevalent. Between 2008 and 2013, Jealous served as the president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization. Under his leadership, the NAACP grew to be the largest civil rights organization online and on mobile devices, as well as in the streets. Prior to leading the NAACP, he spent 15 years serving as a journalist and community organizer. In 2007, he co-founded VoteHope, an independent expenditure operation that helped then-Senator Obama win several early presidential primary states. Jealous serves on the Board of Directors of the tech firm Pigeonly, which helps incarcerated men and women stay in contact with their families and society through low-cost, cutting-edge voice and image sharing technology. He is an advisor to startups WorkAmerica, which helps unemployed Americans embark on well-paying technical careers, and PayNearMe, which helps people who do not have credit cards access to online economy. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Level Playing Field Institute, Rosenberg Foundation, and Southern Elections Fund. Jealous holds a BA in political science from Columbia University and a master’s degree in comparative social research from the Department of Social Policy and Intervention at the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.