James B. Hunt Jr. is a nationally recognized leader in education and has led his state through twenty years of dramatic economic change. Serving a historic four terms as governor (two terms between 1977 and 1985, and another two from 1993 to 2001), Hunt has been at the forefront of education reform in his state and in the nation; The Rand Corporation reported that North Carolina public schools improved test scores more than any other state in the 1990s.

Hunt is currently a partner in the large southeastern law firm of Womble Carlyle Sandridge and Rice, practicing in the Raleigh, NC office. He also chairs the board of the James B. Hunt, Jr. Institute for Educational Leadership and Policy. Part of the University of North Carolina system, the institute was established in 2001 to work with current and emerging political, business, and education leaders on a national level to improve public education.

As governor, Hunt focused on early childhood development and improving the quality of teaching in America. His Smart Start program is a nonprofit, public-private partnership rooted in each of the state’s one hundred counties providing quality child care, health care, and family support for each child who needs it. It is funded primarily by the state but is also supported heavily by private corporations and individuals. Smart Start has been visited and studied by early childhood leaders from all fifty states and many foreign countries. It received the prestigious Innovations in American Government Award from the Ford Foundation and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Hunt has devoted much of the last fifteen years of his life to excellence in teaching in the United States. In 1985 he co-chaired with David Hamburg the “Committee of Fifty,” which led to the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy and, eventually, to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. He served in that capacity for ten years, developing standards for what accomplished teachers in America need to know and be able to do and assessments to Board-certify them. Hunt also serves as the chairman of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future at Teachers College, Columbia University. Its 1996 report, What Matters Most: Teaching for America's Future, continues to stimulate major changes in teacher education programs and public policies that advance teaching. Hunt also serves on the board of trustees of Carnegie Corporation of New York.

A strong supporter of high standards in public schools, Hunt has served as chairman of the National Education Goals Panel and vice chairman of the board of Achieve, Inc. He has put into place in North Carolina one of the nation’s most rigorous approaches to measuring student performance, requiring mastery of promotion and graduation and providing assistance to turn around failing schools.

His state’s economic gains from educational improvement have been impressive. North Carolina has regularly led the nation in new job creation per capita and in foreign investment. He has focused on new technologies by establishing the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, the Microelectronics Center of North Carolina, and the North Carolina Biotechnology Center. In higher education, he serves as chairman of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education located in San Jose, CA.

His work has been recognized with numerous national awards, including the Harold W.McGraw Jr. Prize in Education, the Children's Defense Fund Award, and the National Education Association’s Friend of Education Award.

Hunt also lived in Nepal from 1964 to 1966. During this time, he served as a Ford Foundation economic advisor to His Majesty's government. Hunt has served on the Commission on U.S.-Japan Relations for the Twenty-first Century and, working with the Asia Society, co-chairs the National Commission on Asia in the Schools.

Hunt holds BA and MS degrees from North Carolina State University and a JD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.