Reed Hundt

Reed Hundt
Reed Eric Hundt (born March 3, 1948) is the chairman, CEO and co-founder of the Coalition for Green Capital. The idea of a national green bank came from work Hundt did for the Obama Presidential Transition Team in 2008-9, on which he was responsible for reviewing economic agencies of the federal government. The first champions of this new institution were then Congressmen Chris Van Hollen (D-Md) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass). Legislation launching the national green bank was incorporated in ACES, the cap-and-trade bill enacted in the House, and also was passed on a bipartisan basis from the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. A national climate bank bill was introduced by the same two Congressmen in 2019, after they had become senators; was passed in the House in 2020 and 2021; became part of the Inflation Reduction Act enacted in August 2022. During these years CGC created more than three dozen state and local green banks to lay the groundwork for the national entity.
Hundt, an attorney. was a senior adviser to Covington and Burling from 2014 to 2019, to Skadden Arps from 2009 to 2014; to McKinsey, the consulting firm, from 1998 to 2009. He has served on many corporate boards, including Intel Corporation from 2001 to 2020, and helped start four firms, including two nonprofits, CGC and Making Every Vote Count. He has served as an adviser and venture partner to private equity and venture capital firms, including GTCR from 2006 to 2016.
Hundt served as chairman of the United States Federal Communications Commission from November 29, 1993 to November 3, 1997. He was a partner and associate at Latham & Watkins from 1975 to 1993, clerked for Judge Harrison L. Winter of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit from 1974 to 1975, and graduated from Yale Law School in 1974, where he was a member of the board of the Yale Law Journal. He graduated Yale College in 1969.
Biography
Hundt attended high school in Washington D.C. at St. Albans School, graduating in 1965. He went to Yale College, where he majored in history, and worked on the Yale Daily News. Hundt taught school for several years before graduating from Yale Law School in 1974. He clerked for Harrison Lee Winter, a Baltimore judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, before moving to Los Angeles, where he became the 85th lawyer at Latham & Watkins, one of the top law firms in the world.
In 1980, Hundt moved to the Latham & Watkins' Washington, D.C., office. In his litigation career at the firm, Hundt appeared in court in 48 states and the District of Columbia, argued appellate cases in almost all circuits, and handled cases in many topic areas, although he specialized in antitrust.
From 1983 Hundt supported Al Gore's political career. In 1992-3 he was part of the Clinton-Gore transition team, and chaired the committee that drafted the partly successful carbon tax introduced and passed in the House of Representatives in 1993. It was not passed through the Senate. In 1993 President Clinton, whom Hundt had known in law school, nominated Hundt to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. He was confirmed in November 1993.
Between 1998 and 2008, Hundt was a senior advisor to McKinsey, the consulting firm. He also served on many technology company boards from 1998 to the present, co-founded four firms (none of which was wildly successful), gave many speeches, wrote five books and numerous articles.
In popular culture
Hundt is referenced by Dale Gribble in Season 4, Episode 10 ("Hillenium") of King of the Hill as the author of a "brilliantly written op-ed piece" about Y2K millennium.
In an episode of the original series of Animaniacs, Hundt is spoofed as "Reef Blundt".
Personal life
Hundt is married to Betsy Katz. They have three children and two grand-children, and live in Chevy Chase, MD, and Portola Valley, CA.
Books
He has written five books, including A Crisis Wasted: Barack Obama’s Defining Decisions (2019); Zero Hour:Time to Build the Clean Power Platform (2013); The Politics of Abundance: How Technology Can Fix the Budget, Revive the American Dream, and Establish Obama’s Legacy (2012, co-written with Blair Levin); In China’s Shadow: The Crisis of American Entrepreneurship (2006); You Say You Want A Revolution: A Story of Information Age Politics (2000).
References
External links
techliberation's commentary on Frontline's public interest comment filed with the FCC
gigaom commentary on Frontline and the spectrum auction
Reed Hundt bio at Public Knowledge
1948 births
American chief executives
Chairmen of the Federal Communications Commission
Clinton administration commissioners
Intel people
Living people
McKinsey & Company people
Lawyers from Ann Arbor, Michigan
St. Albans School (Washington, D.C.) alumni
Blackstone Inc. people
Yale College alumni
Yale Law School alumni
Clinton administration personnel