Jason Cone
Chief Public Policy Officer, Robin Hood Foundation
A nonprofit leader with more than 20 years of experience leading multidisciplinary teams responding to complex humanitarian crises, mounting international and national social change advocacy campaigns, and managing critical security and risk incidents, Jason Cone established and currently leads Robin Hood’s public policy department as chief public policy officer. In this capacity, he oversees a $12 million grant-making portfolio tackling issues such as child poverty, criminal justice, affordable housing, child care, and tax policy reform. His work has supported policy change campaigns resulting in major reforms to the federal child tax credit, state parole regulations, medical debt collection practices, unemployment insurance, emergency rental assistance, and worker protections.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, he cofounded the BlueCheck Charitable Foundation, which has provided nearly $2 million to local Ukrainian organizations providing emergency humanitarian aid in besieged regions of the county.
Prior to Robin Hood, over the course of 15 years working for Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF-USA), where his final position was as executive director, Cone led international communications and policy advocacy campaigns on childhood malnutrition, access to medicines, the global refugee crisis, and epidemics such as Ebola and HIV/AIDS. To do this work, he conducted field assignments in Colombia, El Salvador, Gaza and the West Bank, Haiti, Jordan, Lebanon, Liberia, Mexico, Myanmar, South Sudan, Thailand, and Turkey.
He is an internationally recognized speaker and published writer on humanitarian issues, international humanitarian law, global health, crisis communications, nonprofit ethics, and global migration, publishing essays and opinion pieces in The New York Times, Harvard International Review, Time, Politico, Foreign Policy, and other publications. He was nominated for a News & Documentary Emmy for his executive producer role on a documentary series on childhood malnutrition. PRWeek has included him on its Power List of PR Professionals three times, and he was listed among the top nonprofit leaders under 40 by the Chronicle of Philanthropy in 2016. He is a graduate of Franklin & Marshall College and completed programs on nonprofit leadership and public policy at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School and in the Harvard Kennedy School’s Executive Education program. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.