Full Name
Jonathan Greenblatt
Job Title
CEO
Company
Anti-Defamation League
Speaker Bio
Jonathan Greenblatt is the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and its sixth National Director. As chief executive of ADL, Jonathan leads all aspects of one of the most respected civil rights organizations in the country. He is an accomplished entrepreneur and innovative leader with deep experience in the private, public, and non-profit sectors.
Since becoming CEO in July 2015, Greenblatt has modernized the organization while refocusing it on the dual mission it has had since its founding in 1913: to fight the defamation of the Jewish people, and to secure justice and fair treatment for all.
Under Greenblatt, ADL has worked in new and expanded ways to combat and uncover anti-Semitism – online and offline, in the United States and around the world, cementing longstanding relationships and building new partners. The organization held the first “Never is Now” event, a groundbreaking conference that was the largest gathering on anti-Semitism in the history of ADL.
As just one part of Jonathan’s effort to modernize ADL, he has made identifying and countering the growing threat of cyber hate a priority for the organization. This includes working with all major social media companies and many other digital platforms, and building the most advanced cyber hate monitoring center in the world. In 2017, Recode named Jonathan to “The Recode 100,” a list of the top 100 people in tech, business, and media, for his work trying to shut down extremists online.
Jonathan has been vocal in criticizing the use of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against the state of Israel. He delivered a major speech to the United Nations denouncing the BDS movement, and under his leadership ADL joined with the European Jewish Congress to combat the delegitizmation of Israel and partnered with the Tel Aviv-based Reut Institute to develop strategies to end the BDS threat.
He has called out hateful rhetoric by members of both political parties, especially during the 2016 presidential campaign. He also led ADL’s creation of the #50StatesAgainstHate initiative pushing for strong hate crimes laws in every state after nine members of an African-American church in Charleston, S.C., were murdered by a white supremacist. Meanwhile, under Greenblatt, ADL continues its close collaboration on hate crimes with the FBI and law enforcement agencies coast to coast.
Prior to joining the ADL, Greenblatt served in the White House as Special Assistant to President Obama and Director of the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation. He came to that role after a long career as a serial social entrepreneur and corporate executive, starting, and scaling businesses focused on creating economic value and social good. He co-founded the business that launched Ethos Water, the premium bottled water that helps children around the world access clean water. Ethos Water pioneered the idea of linking cause to consumption and was acquired by Starbucks Coffee Company in 2005. Following the acquisition, Jonathan was named vice president of global consumer products at Starbucks and joined the board of the Starbucks Foundation.
Jonathan also founded All for Good, one of the largest databases of volunteer opportunities on the Internet. It was acquired by Points of Light in 2011. Prior, Jonathan served as CEO of GOOD Worldwide, a diversified media company whose products include the award-winning GOOD Magazine and the popular website GOOD.is. Earlier in his career, he worked as an executive at REALTOR.com (now Move Networks), joining the company as a product manager and eventually heading up its consumer products unit.
From 2006 to 2011, Jonathan taught social entrepreneurship at the Anderson School of Management at UCLA. In 2015, he served as a senior fellow at the Wharton School of Management. Jonathan graduated cum laude with a BA from Tufts University and earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Jonathan has served on numerous startup and non-profit boards, including the African Leadership Foundation, Kevita, KaBOOM!, and Water.org. He is a member of the 2006 class of Henry Crown Fellows at the Aspen Institute and is a Next Generation Fellow of the American Assembly.
Jonathan’s ADL roots run deep. As an undergraduate at Tufts, he interned in ADL’s New England Regional Office in Boston, and he is a graduate of ADL’s Salvin Leadership Program. Jonathan is married to Marjan Keypour Greenblatt, an Iranian-American who came to the U.S. as a political refugee. Marjan worked as an associate director in ADL’s Pacific Southwest Regional Office in Los Angeles for nearly eight years.
Since becoming CEO in July 2015, Greenblatt has modernized the organization while refocusing it on the dual mission it has had since its founding in 1913: to fight the defamation of the Jewish people, and to secure justice and fair treatment for all.
Under Greenblatt, ADL has worked in new and expanded ways to combat and uncover anti-Semitism – online and offline, in the United States and around the world, cementing longstanding relationships and building new partners. The organization held the first “Never is Now” event, a groundbreaking conference that was the largest gathering on anti-Semitism in the history of ADL.
As just one part of Jonathan’s effort to modernize ADL, he has made identifying and countering the growing threat of cyber hate a priority for the organization. This includes working with all major social media companies and many other digital platforms, and building the most advanced cyber hate monitoring center in the world. In 2017, Recode named Jonathan to “The Recode 100,” a list of the top 100 people in tech, business, and media, for his work trying to shut down extremists online.
Jonathan has been vocal in criticizing the use of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against the state of Israel. He delivered a major speech to the United Nations denouncing the BDS movement, and under his leadership ADL joined with the European Jewish Congress to combat the delegitizmation of Israel and partnered with the Tel Aviv-based Reut Institute to develop strategies to end the BDS threat.
He has called out hateful rhetoric by members of both political parties, especially during the 2016 presidential campaign. He also led ADL’s creation of the #50StatesAgainstHate initiative pushing for strong hate crimes laws in every state after nine members of an African-American church in Charleston, S.C., were murdered by a white supremacist. Meanwhile, under Greenblatt, ADL continues its close collaboration on hate crimes with the FBI and law enforcement agencies coast to coast.
Prior to joining the ADL, Greenblatt served in the White House as Special Assistant to President Obama and Director of the Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation. He came to that role after a long career as a serial social entrepreneur and corporate executive, starting, and scaling businesses focused on creating economic value and social good. He co-founded the business that launched Ethos Water, the premium bottled water that helps children around the world access clean water. Ethos Water pioneered the idea of linking cause to consumption and was acquired by Starbucks Coffee Company in 2005. Following the acquisition, Jonathan was named vice president of global consumer products at Starbucks and joined the board of the Starbucks Foundation.
Jonathan also founded All for Good, one of the largest databases of volunteer opportunities on the Internet. It was acquired by Points of Light in 2011. Prior, Jonathan served as CEO of GOOD Worldwide, a diversified media company whose products include the award-winning GOOD Magazine and the popular website GOOD.is. Earlier in his career, he worked as an executive at REALTOR.com (now Move Networks), joining the company as a product manager and eventually heading up its consumer products unit.
From 2006 to 2011, Jonathan taught social entrepreneurship at the Anderson School of Management at UCLA. In 2015, he served as a senior fellow at the Wharton School of Management. Jonathan graduated cum laude with a BA from Tufts University and earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Jonathan has served on numerous startup and non-profit boards, including the African Leadership Foundation, Kevita, KaBOOM!, and Water.org. He is a member of the 2006 class of Henry Crown Fellows at the Aspen Institute and is a Next Generation Fellow of the American Assembly.
Jonathan’s ADL roots run deep. As an undergraduate at Tufts, he interned in ADL’s New England Regional Office in Boston, and he is a graduate of ADL’s Salvin Leadership Program. Jonathan is married to Marjan Keypour Greenblatt, an Iranian-American who came to the U.S. as a political refugee. Marjan worked as an associate director in ADL’s Pacific Southwest Regional Office in Los Angeles for nearly eight years.
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