Joshua Brewster Bolten (born August 16, 1954) is an American lawyer and politician. Bolten served as the

White House chief of staff The White House chief of staff is the head of the Executive Office of the President of the United States, a position in the federal government of the United States. The chief of staff is a Political appointments in the United States, politi ...

U.S. president The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal government of t ...

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Bush family and the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he i ...

, replacing

Andrew Card Andrew Hill Card Jr. (born May 10, 1947) is an American politician and Academic administration, academic administrator who was White House Chief of Staff under President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2006, as well as head of Bush's White House Iraq ...

on April 14, 2006. Previously, he served as the director of the

Office of Management and Budget The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is the largest office within the Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP). The office's most prominent function is to produce the president's budget, while it also examines agency pro ...

from 2003 to 2006. Since 2017, he has been president and CEO of the

Business Roundtable The Business Roundtable (BRT) is a nonprofit lobbyist association based in Washington, D.C. whose members are chief executive officers of major U.S. companies. Unlike the United States Chamber of Commerce, whose members are entire businesses, ...

Early life and education

Bolten is

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

, the son of Analouise (née Clissold) and Seymour Bolten. His father worked for the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

and his mother taught world history at

George Washington University The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally-chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Originally named Columbian College, it was chartered in 1821 by ...

. He graduated from St. Albans School, and served on the school's board until 2007. Bolten attended

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

, where he studied in the

Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs The Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (''abbrev.'' SPIA; formerly the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs) is a professional public policy school at Princeton University. The school provides an array of c ...

and served as class president and president of

The Ivy Club The Ivy Club, often simply Ivy, is the oldest eating club at Princeton University. It was founded in 1879 with Arthur Hawley Scribner as its first head. Club culture The club is described by F. Scott Fitzgerald in '' This Side of Paradise'' ( ...

. He graduated in 1976. Bolten completed a 152-page long senior thesis titled "Judicial Selection in Virginia." He graduated with a J.D. from

Stanford Law School Stanford Law School (SLS) is the Law school in the United States, law school of Stanford University, a Private university, private research university near Palo Alto, California. Established in 1893, Stanford Law had an acceptance rate of 6.28% i ...

in 1980 and served as an editor of the law review.

Career

Under President George H.W. Bush (1989–1993), Bolten was general counsel to the

Office of the United States Trade Representative The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is an agency of the United States federal government responsible for developing and promoting United States foreign trade policies. Part of the Executive Office of the President, it ...

for three years and deputy assistant to the president for legislative affairs for one year. Bolten was executive director for legal and government Affairs at

Goldman Sachs The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered in Lower Manhattan in New York City, with regional headquarters in many internationa ...

in London from 1994 to 1999. He served as policy director for the 2000 George W. Bush presidential campaign Under George W. Bush, he served as deputy chief of staff for policy at the White House from 2001 to 2003. Bolten served as director of

(OMB) from 2004 until 2006. In 2006, he was appointed as White House chief of staff. He was the second Jewish person to hold that top position (after Ken Duberstein during the

Reagan administration Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following his landslide victory over ...

, and before

Rahm Emanuel Rahm Israel Emanuel (; born November 29, 1959) is an American politician, advisor, diplomat, and former investment banker who most recently served as List of ambassadors of the United States to Japan, United States ambassador to Japan from 2022 ...

in the Obama years). Bolten served as White House chief of staff from 2006 until 2009. He recruited

Henry Paulson Henry "Hank" Merritt Paulson Jr. (born March 28, 1946) is an American investment banker and financier who served as the 74th United States secretary of the treasury from 2006 to 2009. Prior to his role in the Department of the Treasury, Paulson ...

—then-CEO of Goldman Sachs—to serve as

Treasury Secretary The United States secretary of the treasury is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, and is the chief financial officer of the federal government of the United States. The secretary of the treasury serves as the principal a ...

, based on his former employment at the firm. In addition, he recruited

Tony Snow Robert Anthony Snow (June 1, 1955 – July 12, 2008) was an American journalist, political commentator, anchor, columnist, musician, and the 25th White House Press Secretary under President George W. Bush, from May 2006 until his resignation ...

to work as

White House press secretary The White House press secretary is a senior White House official whose primary responsibility is to act as spokesperson for the executive branch of the United States federal government, especially with regard to the president, senior aides and ...

, offered

Rob Portman Robert Jones Portman (born December 19, 1955) is an American attorney and politician who served as a United States senator from Ohio from 2011 to 2023. A member of the Republican Party, Portman was the 35th director of the Office of Management ...

the opportunity to succeed him as OMB director, and brought his OMB deputy

Joel Kaplan Joel David Kaplan (born 1969) is an American political advisor, lobbyist, and attorney. In January 2025, it was announced that Kaplan will become the president of global affairs of Meta Platforms, owner of Facebook, in Spring 2025. He has been th ...

into the White House as deputy chief of staff for policy.

Later career

Bolten became the John L. Weinberg/Goldman Sachs & Co. Visiting Professor at the

Princeton School of Public and International Affairs The Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (''abbrev.'' SPIA; formerly the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs) is a professional public policy school at Princeton University. The school provides an array of co ...

in September 2009, teaching courses on the federal budget and international trade and

financial regulation Financial regulation is a broad set of policies that apply to the financial sector in most jurisdictions, justified by two main features of finance: systemic risk, which implies that the failure of financial firms involves public interest consi ...

. In March 2010, Bolten was appointed a member of the board and co-chair of the

Clinton Bush Haiti Fund The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund was a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded on January 16, 2010, by former US Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, to aid the victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The organization was formed in response t ...

, which has raised $36 million to date for immediate

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

relief and long-term recovery efforts in the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

country. In July 2011, Bolten co-founded Rock Creek Global Advisors, an international economic and regulatory policy consulting firm, where he served as managing director until 2017. In January 2017, Bolten was named president and CEO of the

, a conservative lobbying organization. He replaced former Michigan Governor

John Engler John Mathias Engler (born October 12, 1948) is an American politician, lawyer, businessman, and lobbyist who served as the 46th governor of Michigan from 1991 to 2003. Considered one of the country's top lobbyists, he is a member of the Republi ...

in the role.

Personal life

Bolten plays

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

in a band called The Compassionates. In 2015, Bolten married Ann Kelly.

References

External links

Biography in Stanford Law School magazineFriends discuss Bolten's college experience
at dailyprincetonian.com.
Yale Daily News: Bolten's Former Yale Colleagues Discuss the New Bush Tap
by Andrew Mangino and Maggie Reid *
C-SPAN ''Q&A'' interview with Bolten, May 22, 2005
, - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Bolten, Joshua 1954 births Directors of the Office of Management and Budget George W. Bush administration personnel George W. Bush administration cabinet members Goldman Sachs people Jewish members of the Cabinet of the United States Lawyers who have represented the United States government Living people Place of birth missing (living people) Princeton School of Public and International Affairs alumni St. Albans School (Washington, D.C.) alumni Stanford Law School alumni Washington, D.C., Republicans White House chiefs of staff White House deputy chiefs of staff