Ajit Pai

Ajit Pai is a partner at Searchlight Capital Partners and a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). He is also a nonresident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on issues pertaining to technology and innovation, telecommunications regulatory policy, and market-based incentives for investment in broadband deployment.

He was appointed FCC commissioner by President Barack Obama in 2012 and designated chairman by President Donald Trump in 2017. Earlier in his career, Pai served in various public-sector positions in the FCC’s Office of General Counsel, the U.S. Justice Department, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, and the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. He also worked as a partner at Jenner & Block and associate general counsel at Verizon Communications.

Pai graduated with honors from Harvard University, where he received a bachelor’s degree, and from the University of Chicago Law School, where he received a law degree and was an editor on the University of Chicago Law Review.