Jass Stewart, JFF’s Vice President for Communications and Technology, has more than fifteen years of management and operational experience across the fields of communications, marketing, technology, and education. He leads the planning, development, and management of JFF products, events, and messages to increase the organization’s impact with the media, policymakers, and opinion leaders.
Before joining JFF, Stewart served as the national director for school development and public engagement at The Big Picture Company, an education advocacy organization funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. At Big Picture, he led education reform and leadership development in 15 cities across the country, in partnership with superintendents, mayors, and school boards. He spearheaded the organization’s first K-12 system of district public schools in St. Louis.
Stewart founded and ran Invent Media, a social marketing and technology company serving national nonprofits whose clients included MIT, the Smithsonian, and other high-profile organizations. Stewart was named Entrepreneur of the Week by AOL’s BlackVoices.com, citing the company’s groundbreaking interactive television projects. He also served as senior director for publishing and new media at Blackside, producers of the Academy Award-nominated documentary series Eyes on the Prize.
Stewart is known for his progressive political campaigns. In Brockton, Massachusetts, he was the city’s first-ever African-American candidate for mayor, as well as the first openly gay and youngest candidate. He helped to increase voter turnout by 22 percent, and was called a “change agent” by The Boston Globe. He came shy of winning the heated 2007 mayoral election by 700 votes.
Stewart has earned a reputation as a strategic thinker, a consensus builder, and a hands-on manager who knows how to get products and ideas to market. He has degrees in communications and education from Boston University and served as a senior research fellow in urban planning at MIT. He resides in Brockton with his partner and their adopted son.
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