Jared Lyon
Building Institutions That Serve Communities at Scale
Jared has spent his career helping member-based organizations grow, govern well, and earn standing with the people they serve. His experience spans executive leadership, membership and network growth, board partnership, revenue development, public affairs, coalition building, and cross-sector partnerships.
As President & CEO of Student Veterans of America from 2016 to 2026, he led a federated network of campus chapters through a decade of national growth, worked with the board through a planned CEO succession, and represented the organization before Congress and across four presidential administrations.
His next chapter applies that experience to leading mission-driven institutions across education, workforce, civic trust, and public purpose.
Full executive profile
Four Pillars of the Work
Education, workforce, civic trust, and public purpose. Four interlocking pillars of the institutional infrastructure a country needs to govern itself, compete, and stay together.
Federal higher education policy, post-traditional students, and the institutional capacity that turns access into outcomes. The system that has carried the public-purpose case for American higher education, and how to argue it again.
The handoff between education and work, the institutions that make it durable, and the cross-sector partnerships that connect schools, employers, and communities to shared outcomes at scale.
Leading nonpartisan institutions in a low-trust era. Earning standing across sectors, administrations, and political coalitions, and treating public trust as an institutional asset that has to be built and stewarded over time.
The broader public-purpose rationales that undergird American civic institutions. Why they were built, how they hold up, and what it takes to defend and renew them in the world we are in now.
Remarks at the George W. Bush Presidential Center
A Legacy of Service: America at the 25th Anniversary of 9/11. Dallas, September 9, 2026, on a program with President George W. Bush and Secretary Condoleezza Rice.
Watch on the Bush Center’s site → · Event record →
Upcoming. October 24, 2026 · MCON 2026 Military Impact Summit, Las Vegas. Jared will moderate the fireside chat The All-Volunteer Force at a Crossroads with Ramón “CZ” Colón-López, who served as the fourth Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The conversation asks what the private sector owes an all-volunteer military. MCON agenda →
Jared Lyon at TEDxFSU, featured on TED.com
“Rethinking Our Expectations for Post-Traditional Students,” on why the students American higher education was originally built for are no longer the students it actually serves, and what that means for institutions.
Watch Jared Lyon’s TED talk on TED.com →
NatCon 2026: CEO Succession Announcement
Jared Lyon at SVA’s 18th Annual National Conference, The Broadmoor, January 8, 2026.
Nonpartisan Engagement at the Highest Levels
Nonpartisan engagement in national, state, and institutional leadership settings.
Essays and Reference
What a decade growing a chapter network taught about durable scale.
What governance requires during a leadership transition.
What unrestricted capital demands from leaders and boards.
What a strategic plan has to do to be worth the work.
Direct answers on the SVA tenure, succession, and current role, with primary sources.
Approved bios, headshots, and background for journalists and event organizers.
Essays on leadership, governance, and institutions
New essays on building and governing mission-driven institutions, drawn from a decade leading at national scale. Free to subscribe.