Bridging Worlds: Ira Jackson's Journey Through Public-Private Innovation

How a lifetime of cross-sector leadership shaped The Frontier State co-founder's perspective on innovation ecosystems

In February, my co-researcher Ira Jackson served as a judge at Dartmouth College's annual Social Blueprint Challenge—a prestigious competition for socially impactful startups run by DartUP, a program of the Magnuson Center for Entrepreneurship at Dartmouth.

The Social Blueprint Challenge takes students through the complete process of developing a socially impactful venture, from initial concept to pitch presentation. Participants receive mentorship through workshops taught by Tuck School of Business professors, attend sessions on social entrepreneurship fundamentals, and ultimately compete for $2,500 in funding and automatic entry into the quarterfinals of the global Hult Challenge, which offers a $1 million prize.

Following the event, Dartmouth student Anahita Chowdhary sat down with Ira to explore his unique career path and insights on innovation. Her thoughtful profile captures the essence of Ira's cross-sector journey and the experiences that led to our Frontier State project.

I'm sharing an adapted version of her profile that illuminates the background of our project and Ira's approach to understanding innovation ecosystems.

The Curious Generalist

"I don't have a distinctive discipline. I'm not a doctor, I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a candlestick maker. I'm not really a historian, and I'm not really an academic," Ira reflected in his conversation with Anahita. "I'm someone who's been curious about people and institutions and especially innovation, and that has taken me to a variety of venues trying to make a difference in different sectors."

This lifelong curiosity became the foundation for our "Frontier State" research, which explores how innovation hubs develop and thrive. "I began by focusing on Massachusetts, which has become the Silicon Valley of biotechnology and life sciences," Ira explained. "How did that happen? Is there a formula, some magic sauce of collaboration between the public sector and the private sector that can be replicated with other emerging sectors?"

From Newark to City Hall: Finding a Path in Public Service

After studying American History at Harvard, Ira's career began not in the halls of academia or corporate boardrooms, but in crisis-stricken Newark, New Jersey in the late 1960s—a city he described as "perhaps the city most in crisis in all of America."

His entry into government came through a chance midnight encounter. Following a car with a Harvard sticker, Ira discovered it belonged to the campaign chairman for Ken Gibson, who would become the first African American mayor of a major Northeastern city. The next morning, to his surprise, he was offered a job by the newly elected mayor himself.

"I'd like you to come work with me, Ira."

"But I don't know anything about city government," Ira replied.

"Then we'll learn together," concluded the Mayor.

This willingness to dive into the unknown and learn through experience would become a hallmark of Ira's approach throughout his varied career—and later, in our Frontier State research methodology.

Crossing Sectors: From Government to Banking

After serving as chief of staff to Gibson and later Boston Mayor Kevin White, Ira's path led him through roles at Harvard Kennedy School, the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, and eventually to the private sector at BankBoston.

The transition wasn't seamless. "I looked around that first day and regretted it because it was all a bunch of white guys who had gone to Ivy League schools wearing button down shirts," Ira recalled. "It wasn't exactly the world I had come from or felt comfortable with."

Tasked with turning around the bank's performance, Ira drew on his public service experience to create an innovative approach: viewing underserved communities as investment opportunities rather than charity cases.

"Why don't we view Roxbury, the heart of Boston's Black community, as the next emerging market?" he questioned. "We were the first bank to give Ray Kroc a loan when he came up with the idea of McDonald's…[or] when Jack Warner wanted to start a movie studio in Hollywood. Why don't we believe in dreamers again?"

The results were transformative. "The irony was that I was able to do more for the inner city from the private sector than I had even been able to do from the government sector," Ira reflected. "It's a crazy thing."

Building Bridges Between Worlds

Today, Ira leads the Civic Action Project—an organization he co-founded to train the next generation of civic leaders and promote public-private partnerships for innovative policy. The program creates structured opportunities for leaders from different sectors to understand each other's worlds.

One of its most powerful components requires executives to shadow their counterparts across the public-private divide. Ira shared a telling anecdote: "The CEO of a major publicly traded cybersecurity company came back after spending a day with the mayor and said, 'I wasn't looking forward to this. I didn't think she'd be very smart, hardworking, [or] inspiring. And all I can say is I'm exhausted—and inspired.'"

The mayor had a similar experience: "I thought he would be a jerk…but he's really creating a community, just as I am as mayor."

These experiences of breaking down silos and building cross-sector understanding directly inform our approach to The Frontier State project, where we examine how government, academia, industry, and capital markets collaborate to create innovation ecosystems.

Lessons in Leadership and Innovation

Ira's career hasn't been without setbacks. As Commissioner of Revenue, his initiative to speed up tax refunds—cleverly named SERVE: Speedy Efficient Refunds Very Early—hit a major stumbling block when the first refund check bounced.

He later discovered that career bureaucrats had intentionally failed to replenish the refund account. "The very people I was leading had said to themselves 'We're gonna let him fall on his face,'" Ira remembered. "It was a good lesson—you have to be thorough, and enlist everyone to be on the team, especially if you're going to be a change agent."

This experience reinforced a crucial insight that informs our Frontier State research: innovation requires not just visionary leadership but institutional buy-in and collaboration across traditional boundaries.

Advice for the Next Generation

For students and emerging leaders, Ira offers advice that reflects his boundary-crossing career: prioritize your values and take risks.

"You've got pedigree, training, intellectual depth, imagination and ambition. So rather than saying, 'Who will take me?', I'd approach things as, 'Where do I want to go? Who's the leader I want to attach to and learn from?'"

He emphasized going beyond expectations: "I remember when I was working in the mailroom of the Tonight Show one summer during college, I started writing memos to the head of the show. Suddenly, [the head] came down into the basement asking, 'Who the hell is Ira Jackson?,' and ended up promoting me to talent coordinator because I had some good ideas and energy. So take some risks."

Ira has high hopes for the next generation of innovators. "I don't know many people my age who have [shifted paths] as much as I have, but I think that will be more the norm in your generation," he remarked. "I'm looking forward to this generation bringing entrepreneurial savvy, innovation, energy, and idealism, combined with technology and engineering, to addressing and resolving some of the great challenges that face us as a society."

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Thanks to Anahita Chowdhary and Dartmouth's DartUP program at the Magnuson Center for Entrepreneurship for the original interview and for allowing us to share this story with The Frontier State community. DartUP is dedicated to fostering social entrepreneurship through a curriculum of workshops, mentorship, and competitive collaboration opportunities for Dartmouth students.

The Frontier State is a research project, podcast series, and publication exploring how regions become hubs of innovation through unique collaborations between government, industry, academia, and capital markets. Subscribe for weekly insights and conversations with leaders at the frontier of innovation.