Walter Isaacson Chairman

Walter Isaacson, Pembroke ’74, a native of New Orleans, is a best-selling biographer and currently a professor of History at Tulane University.

Prior to assuming his post at Tulane, Walter was President and CEO of the Aspen Institute, Chairman and CEO of CNN and the editor of Time Magazine. He is the author of Steve Jobs (2011), Einstein: His Life and Universe (2007), Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003), and Kissinger: A Biography (1992) and is the coauthor of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made (1986).

Walter is a graduate of Harvard College and of Pembroke College of Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, he was appointed by Governor Kathleen Blanco to be the vice-chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority. In December 2007, he was appointed by President George W. Bush to be the chairman of the U.S.-Palestinian Partnership, a government and private sector effort to provide economic and educational opportunities for the Palestinian people.

He is the former Chairman of the Board of Teach for America, and he is on the boards of United Airlines, Tulane University, and Science Service. He is also on the advisory councils of the National Institutes of Health, the National Constitution Center, and the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC.

Walter lives with his wife and daughter in New Orleans, LA.