A Conversation with Ira Jackson: Lessons in Cross-Sector Innovation
On February 22nd, DartUP held Dartmouth’s fourth annual Social Blueprint Challenge—a competition where students develop and pitch socially impactful startups. The event featured three judges with extensive experience in entrepreneurship, social impact, and innovation; among them was Ira Jackson, current Research Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Jackson has spent his life at the intersection of government, business, and innovation—with positions ranging from Associate Dean of the Kennedy School to Executive VP of BankBoston. “I don't have a distinctive discipline. I'm not a doctor, I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a candlestick maker. I'm not really a historian, and I'm not really an academic,” he reflected. “I'm someone who's been curious about people and institutions and especially innovation, and that has taken me to a variety of venues trying to make a difference in different sectors.”
This lifelong curiosity has led Jackson to work on his current project titled the “Frontier State,” which seeks to uncover how innovation hubs develop. “I began by focusing on Massachusetts, which has become the Silicon Valley of biotechnology and life sciences,” Jackson explained. “How did that happen? Is there a formula, some magic sauce of collaboration, between the public sector and the private sector that can be replicated with other emerging sectors?”
But Jackson’s career didn’t begin in technology or business. After studying American History at Harvard College, Jackson started out in Newark, New Jersey. “A number of my buddies were going off to Vietnam,” he explained. “I was feeling sort of guilt ridden…they were making a sacrifice and I wasn't. [At that time,] Newark was perceived as perhaps the city most in crisis in all of America, so I was drawn to it, and began teaching in a community college and doing pro bono work with an inner-city group.”
A midnight drive through Newark led Jackson to his first government position. “I [was] following a man driving a Lincoln Continental with a Harvard sticker on the back…So I pulled him over,” he recalled. That man was the campaign chairman for Ken Gibson, the first African American mayor of a major Northeastern city. After discovering the campaign chairman's son was his classmate at Harvard, Jackson recalled, “I explained who I was and what I was doing [in Newark], and he said, ‘Get a coat and tie, shave, and be in my office tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock’.” When Jackson arrived the next morning, to his surprise the newly elected Mayor was sitting on a sofa next to his campaign chairman. "I'd like you to come work with me, Ira." "But I don't know anything about city government," Ira replied. "Then we'll learn together," concluded the Mayor.
Jackson started as Gibson’s chief of staff, before returning to Boston to serve in the same role for Mayor Kevin White. “I've spent a considerable amount of time at the local level,” Jackson explained. “I’m very passionate about improving the quality of life and economic opportunity for city residents.”
His experience in local government eventually led Jackson back to Harvard, where he developed a training program for newly elected mayors at the Kennedy School's Institute of Politics. After earning a Masters in Public Administration, he became executive dean of the Kennedy School. Later, as Commissioner of Revenue for Governor Mike Dauus, Jackson worked on tax reform, developing the ABC tax form still used by 70% of Massachusetts taxpayers. “It was color coded and so simple that even the commissioner could fill out his own tax form,” Jackson explained.
Despite his success in government, Jackson became curious about the private sector he had spent his career regulating. He joined Bank Boston, though the transition wasn't easy. “I looked around that first day and regretted it because it was all a bunch of white guys who had gone to Ivy League schools wearing button down shirts,” Jackson recalled. “It wasn't exactly the world I had come from or felt comfortable with.”
The bank had started to lose money, and Jackson was tasked with turning around its performance. His strategy involved returning to the bank’s emphasis on innovation and risk-taking, seeing underserved communities as investment opportunities. “Why don't we view Roxbury, the heart of Boston’s Black community, as the next emerging market?” he questioned. “We were the first bank to give Ray Kroc a loan when he came up with the idea of McDonald's…[or] when Jack Warner wanted to start a movie studio in Hollywood. Why don't we believe in dreamers again?”
The results surprised even Jackson himself. “The irony was that I was able to do more for the inner city from the private sector than I had even been able to do from the government sector,” Jackson reflected. “It's a crazy thing.”
Following his banking career, Jackson served as President of the Arthur Blank Family Foundation, Dean at Claremont Graduate School, and Distinguished Scholar at MIT’s Legatum Center, each role allowing him to explore aspects of innovation and leadership across sectors.
Today, Jackson leads the Civic Action Project—an organization he co-founded to train the next generation of civic leaders and promote public-private partnerships for innovative policy. Alongside a fellows program for Boston-area graduate students, the CAP features a collaborative program that develops trust and understanding between public and private sector executives. “I've trained 164 senior executives—CEOs of major companies and elected mayors and cabinet secretaries—and it's been quite successful,” Jackson explained.
One of the program's most transformative elements requires executives from one sector to shadow an executive from the other. “The CEO of a major publicly traded cybersecurity company came back after spending a day with the mayor and said, ‘I wasn't looking forward to this. I didn't think she'd be very smart, hardworking, [or] inspiring. And all I can say is I'm exhausted—and inspired,’” Jackson recounted. “And then [the mayor] comes back and reports, ‘I thought he would be a jerk…but he's really creating a community, just as I am as mayor.’”
Despite his accomplished career, Jackson has experienced stepbacks. “[As commissioner of revenue] I made a commitment to rapid refund processing. I called it SERVE: Speedy Efficient Refunds Very Early. Well, the first refund check was issued early and fast and guess what happened? The check bounced.”
Accepting responsibility, Jackson apologized and personally delivered a valid check the next day. He later learned that career bureaucrats had intentionally failed to replenish the refund account. “The very people I was leading had said to themselves ‘We're gonna let him fall on his face,’” Jackson remembered. “It was a good lesson—you have to be thorough, and enlist everyone to be on the team, especially if you’re going to be a change agent.”
For SBC participants and the wider Dartmouth student body, Jackson left advice that reflects his boundary-crossing career: prioritize your values and take risks. “You've got pedigree, training, intellectual depth, imagination and ambition. So rather than saying, ‘Who will take me?’, I'd approach things as, ‘Where do I want to go? Who's the leader I want to attach to and learn from?’”
He emphasized going beyond expectations. "I remember when I was working in the mailroom of the Tonight Show one summer during college, I started writing memos to the head of the show,” recalled Jackson. “Suddenly, [the head] came down into the basement asking, ‘Who the hell is Ira Jackson?,’ and ended up promoting me to talent coordinator because I had some good ideas and energy. So take some risks.”
For students entering the private sector, Jackson recommends finding an institution that aligns with your values and looking for ways your company can “not only do well financially, but do good”. For those planning to work in government, he states the importance of bringing business-like insights, innovation, efficiency, and transparency to expand the reach of public service.
Jackson has high hopes for the next generation. “I don't know many people my age who have [shifted paths] as much as I have, but I think that will be more the norm in your generation,” he remarked. “I'm looking forward to this generation bringing entrepreneurial savvy, innovation, energy, and idealism, combined with technology and engineering, to addressing and resolving some of the great challenges that face us as a society.”
As the Social Blueprint Challenge winners head to the Hult Competition and continue refining their ventures, they are bridging sectors—from healthcare to education to engineering—with entrepreneurial and business skills, echoing the same interdisciplinary innovation that has defined Jackson’s career.
