CNN
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President Joe Biden is expected to appoint Jeff Zientz, who led the administration’s Covid-19 response efforts and played a high-ranking role in the Obama administration, to replace Ron Crane as the next White House Chief of Staff. It has been.
Mr. Biden played a big role in the president’s decision after an internal investigation revealed that Mr. Klein, who is set to step down in the coming weeks, endorsed Mr. Zientz as his successor. Klain used his Zients to lead a talent search for expected staff turnover after the midterm elections, which ultimately didn’t materialize as Democrats performed better than expected. I did.
Mr. Biden, who is appointing Mr. Zientz to replace Mr. Crane, is looking to rely on consultants with more business experience than political backgrounds as he enters his third year as president.
The decision to nominate Mr. Bidenz came as a surprise to some within the company, given the differences in the management styles of Mr. Biden and Mr. Zientz early in the administration. But when Zientz took over what officials described as a “largely dysfunctional” effort by the Trump administration, Biden was impressed with his job as coronavirus response coordinator.
Another factor in the investigation is how this stretch of Biden’s presidency will focus on implementing the laws enacted during his first two years, with Zients internally calling itself a “primary enforcer.” His operational skills were demonstrated when he handled the coronavirus response and helped launch the failed HealthCare.gov under the Obama administration in 2013.
Zients, 56, now has closer ties with Biden, his senior advisers and several ministers.
While Zients is not considered a political operator, his deep experience in two administrations and his reputation for technocratic skills are seen as crucial to what Biden faces in the year ahead. can be useful as an asset when
Zients (which rhymes with “science”) first joined the Biden administration in December 2020, when the then president-elect named him the White House’s coronavirus czar. He was then tasked with containing the coronavirus pandemic, mass-distributing approved vaccines, and rebuilding the economy that was devastated when Biden took office.
When he stepped down from the position more than a year later, Biden hailed Jienz as “a serviceman and an expert manager,” and under Zeenz’s watchful eye, vaccinated Americans and helped the United States to defeat the pandemic. advertised the progress made by
“I will miss his advice and appreciate his service,” Biden said.
Early in his career, at the start of the Obama administration in 2009, Zients was the country’s first chief operating officer, tasked with making government smarter and cheaper. These duties came under his separate title as Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget. He later became the acting director of that office.
Zientz also served on the board of the National Economic Council and served as the president’s economic policy adviser under Obama.
He is known for reviving Healthcare.gov, the Obamacare registration website that was plagued with problems and crashed shortly after its launch in 2013. This his website, an online marketplace for health insurance, was a critical centerpiece for Obama’s groundbreaking health care legislation. Zients was a fixer and provided advice to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as it worked to resolve the issue.
Zients has deep ties with the private sector. Prior to working in government, he served as Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, and Chairman of the Corporate Executive Committee of Advisory Board Company, a Washington-area consulting firm. By the time he turned 35, he was already on Fortune magazine’s list of the richest Americans under 40, and after an advisory board was published, an estimated worth of him was $149,000. In terms of $10,000, he was ranked 25th.
He also founded Portfolio Logic, an investment firm focused on healthcare and business services.
After leaving the Obama administration, he served as CEO of the holding company Crenemere and served on Facebook’s board of directors for two years. Zients was also an investor in Call Your Mother, a popular Washington, D.C. deli, who brought his once-a-week bagel into the office to share with White House staff.
Zients sold stakes in Facebook and Call Your Mother before taking the position of coronavirus czar in the White House. When his financial disclosures were published in March 2021, he was worth at least $89.3 million, making him the richest member of the Biden Cabinet appointments.
