Matthew Barzun
Matthew Barzun is a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom (2013 to 2017) and to Sweden (2009 to 2011). In 2008 he joined President Barack Obama’s National Finance Committee where he developed the Obama campaign’s grass-root fundraising and volunteering strategies which were to prove instrumental to electoral success. He later also served as National Finance Chair for President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. He is currently board chair of Tortoise Media (tortoisemedia.com) an online news service he co-founded with the former Director of News at the BBC and the former president of the Wall St. Journal.
Earlier in his career, he helped shape the early development of the internet, joining technology news and reviews website CNET as its fourth employee in 1993 and left in 2004 having served in a number of roles within the company. From 2004 he has advised and invested in start-up internet companies.
Matthew has served on the boards of many not-for-profit organisations with a focus on education, civics, and interfaith relations. Born in New York City and raised in Lincoln, Mass., Matthew currently resides in Louisville, KY with his wife, Brooke Brown Barzun, and their three children and is the owner/publsiher of Louisville Magazine and Louisville.com. He is a graduate of Harvard College.
His upcoming book about leadership, The Power of Giving Away Power: How the Best Leaders Learn to Let Go, will be published by Penguin/Portfolio in 2021.
