Van Jones

Current Company

REFORM Alliance — Co-Founder & CEO

Building at the Intersection of Justice and Enterprise

Van Jones has spent two decades building organizations that treat social justice as an entrepreneurial challenge. He founded Green For All to advocate for green economy jobs in underserved communities, #YesWeCode to train young people from tough backgrounds for careers in tech, and Dream Corps as an umbrella for social enterprises tackling criminal justice reform, economic opportunity, and environmental justice.

In 2019, Jones co-founded REFORM Alliance with an unlikely coalition — rapper Meek Mill, billionaire investor Michael Rubin, Jay-Z, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and others — to transform probation and parole laws in America. REFORM has successfully changed laws in multiple states, directly affecting millions of people trapped in the criminal justice system by overly punitive supervision requirements.

From CNN to Capitol Hill

Jones served briefly in the Obama White House as Special Advisor for Green Jobs before becoming a CNN political commentator, where his willingness to engage across partisan lines made him one of the network's most distinctive voices. He worked with the Trump administration on criminal justice reform, helping secure passage of the First Step Act — bipartisan legislation that reformed federal sentencing and earned rare support from both parties.

Jones's career defies easy categorization: he's part activist, part media personality, part nonprofit entrepreneur, part policy advocate. But the thread connecting everything is a belief that social change requires building institutions — not just raising awareness — and that the most durable reforms come from unlikely coalitions rather than ideological purity.