Harold Ford, Jr.

Currently the chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, Ford spent a decade as a member of the United States House of Representatives and was a 2006 Senate candidate. Described by President Clinton as "the walking, living embodiment of where America ought to go in the 21st century," U. S. Representative Harold Ford, Jr. (D-Tenn.) has distinguished himself as a charismatic, results-oriented politician with fresh ideas and a pragmatic approach.

Elected in 1996 to Tennessee's 9th congressional district, Ford was re-elected four times by an average of 80 percent of the vote. He built a reputation on Capitol Hill as a consensus builder while serving on the House Budget Committee, the House Committee on Financial Services and the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Known to his colleagues as a fiscal watchdog conservative, Ford played an active role as a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of moderate and fiscally conservative Democrats seeking middle-ground, bipartisan answers to the current challenges facing our country. As a pro-business Democrat, Ford believed then and now that solving problems should always overshadow bitter partisanship.

In 2006, Ford lost a close and controversial U.S. Senate race in Tennessee. Since then, he has moved to New York City, married Emily Frances Ford, and now works as a Vice Chairman at Bank of America and as a Distinguished Practitioner in Residence at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service. In addition, Ford serves on the Pentagon’s Transformation Advisory Board, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and is an overseer at the International Rescue Committee.

Ford graduated from the University of Michigan Law School in 1996 and earned a bachelors degree in American history from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992.

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