Jamie Rubin is Chairman of the Advisory Board of Aligned Climate Capital, a leading investor in the low carbon economy. He was until July 2021 the CEO of Meridiam NA, a world-leading investor in and developer of transformative infrastructure projects. He joined Meridiam in January 2018, bringing three decades of experience in the New York State and federal governments, the business world, and the nonprofit sector.
As Meridiam’s first North American CEO, he headed a $1.2 billion fund dedicated to developing and managing complex public-private partnerships. Meridiam’s signature projects include LaGuardia Terminal B, the first new airport built in the United States in a quarter-century; the recently-approved Miami Beach monorail; and the Purple Line extension of the D.C. Metro.
Among others, Jamie guided Meridiam’s entry into the North American clean energy market.
Prior to Meridiam, Jamie spent five years as a top official in New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration. In the wake of Superstorm Sandy, Jamie was tapped by the Governor to build and lead a new agency, the Office of Storm Recovery, to disburse $4.4 billion in federal disaster recovery funds. Jamie designed programs to assist homeowners and small businesses, while prioritizing long-term resiliency and environmental sustainability and safeguarding against fraud and abuse. He hired and managed 200 people from a standing start.
Before creating the Office of Storm Recovery, Jamie was New York Director of President Obama’s Hurricane Sandy Recovery and Rebuilding Task Force and a Senior Advisor to U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan.
In 2015, Jamie joined the Governor’s Cabinet as Commissioner of Homes and Community Renewal, leading the state’s 4,000-person housing agency and designing a $1 billion affordable housing plan. He later served in the Governor’s Executive Chamber as Director of State Operations, overseeing 200,000 state employees across 95 state agencies.
From 1998 to 2012, Jamie worked in the private sector, first as an investment banker and later as a partner at two multibillion dollar private-equity firms: One Equity Partners and BC Partners.
In addition to his service in state government, Jamie worked on the 1996 Clinton presidential campaign and in the Clinton administration, first in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs and, from 1996 to 1998, in the Office of the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. In 2008, he worked on the Obama-Biden presidential transition, overseeing economic personnel selection for the Treasury, Transportation, and Labor Departments, among others.
Jamie currently serves as a Director of One Team Partners, representing union interests in a $2 billion company formed by the NFL Players Association and the Major League Players Association; and the Housing Investment Trust, a subsidiary of the AFL-CIO Pension Fund.
Long active in civic life, Jamie has founded, led, and served on the board of more than a dozen nonprofits and community groups. He currently chairs the board of the Osborne Association, which provides support services to incarcerated individuals and their families and advocates for criminal justice reform. He serves as Budget Policy Committee Chairman for the Citizens Budget Commission, New York’s fiscal watchdog; and as a member of the Executive Committee of the Regional Plan Association, a 100-year-old civic organization that develops and promotes ideas to improve the economic health of the New York metropolitan area. In 2008, he co-founded GreaterNY, which pairs senior private-sector executives with nonprofit leaders to share expertise and facilitate cross-sector understanding.
In response to the Covid pandemic, Jamie spearheaded the creation of the $150 million NY Forward Loan Fund, which provides emergency low-interest loans to small businesses. He also co-chaired the Recovery Task Force of the Human Services Coalition, the umbrella group of New York’s largest human-services organizations. He is the Founder and Chairman of the NYC 2025 initiative at NYU Wagner School of Public Policy.
A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Jamie graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1989 and received his J.D. in 1993 from Yale Law School, where he was Managing Editor of the Yale Law & Policy Review. His wife, Gretchen Rubin, is the author of eight non-fiction books, including four New York Times bestsellers. They have two daughters, Eliza (22) and Eleanor (16).