Jason Berkenfeld, Founder & President

Prior to launching Bluespark Partners, Jason led political giving and investing for former Google CEO Eric Schmidt full-time for five years.  In this role, he helped to launch new initiatives, build new tools, and make numerous investments focused on catalyzing innovation in our elections and in our politics.  Concurrently, Jason served as the Head of Strategy and Chair of the Investment Committee for the broader Schmidt philanthropy, Schmidt Futures.  In this role, Jason helped to set org-wide goals and led the process by which all grants and gifts were diligenced and vetted. 

Jason caught the political bug knocking on doors in Pennsylvania for then-Senator Barack Obama in the run up to the 2008 election. Thereafter, he spent six election cycles working on campaigns at all levels, all over the country.  This included a stint as the Regional GOTV Director for the Obama reelection campaign in southwest Iowa, and another as the campaign manager for now New York State Senator Brad Hoylman in Manhattan.

To start his career, Jason spent three years at Bain & Company, a global management consulting firm, where he worked with clients in education, healthcare, and retail.  He also spent three years as the Head of Community at Thumbtack, an online marketplace for local service providers.  In this role, Jason learned how to harness the power of technology to drive positive change and how to build solutions to hard problems from the ground up.  He has continued to focus on technology in his time with Eric Schmidt, exploring the many ways in which technology can be used to bolster an inclusive, multiracial democracy instead of tearing it apart.   

Jason earned his J.D. from Yale Law School and is a member of the New York State Bar.  He also graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in History and Science from Harvard. He and his husband currently live in San Francisco.