Jake Harriman

Meet Jake

Jake Harriman graduated with distinction, from the United States Naval Academy and served seven and a half years in the U.S. Marine Corps as a Platoon Commander in both the Infantry and Force Recon. During his military service, Jake led four operational deployments, including two combat tours in Iraq.

From his experience Jake learned that the “War on Terror” wouldn’t be won on the battlefield alone: the contributing causes of terrorism—including extreme poverty—must also be eradicated in order to defeat terrorism. This carved a new direction in Jake’s life.

Following his service, Jake enrolled at the Stanford Graduate School of Business to gain the business acumen he would need to follow this new direction. While at Stanford, Jake founded Nuru International to eradicate extreme poverty in the world’s most unstable, vulnerable regions to help end violent extremism. Following graduation, he led a team within Nuru to create Nuru Kenya later that year and Nuru Ethiopia in 2013—both resulting in successful “proof of concept” projects for the organization. Nuru’s latest project is in far northeast Nigeria in former Islamic State West Africa Province and Boko Haram caliphate territory. Since 2009, Nuru has impacted over 130,000 people—empowering them to lift themselves out of extreme poverty. From 2017-2019, Jake helped draft, introduce and work to pass groundbreaking new legislation called the Global Fragility Act of 2019 that equips America with new authorities and resources to prevent conflict and stabilize some of the most fragile regions of the world.

Due to the desperate condition of the U.S. political system, Jake has now turned his attention to helping protect the American Democratic experiment, which he fears is on the brink of failure—a failure that would have terrible global consequences. Jake is the Founder and CEO of More Perfect Union, a 10-year plan to heal the divide in the nation and make our government work for the American people by building a viable center in American politics. Key early components of Jake's plan include creating a country-first fulcrum of five new Members in the U.S. Senate, building a nationwide movement for unity and reform, and passing new legislation to reform the electoral system and structural rules and norms of Congress.

Jake has received several honors including the Unsung Hero of Compassion presented by His Holiness The Dalai Lama (2014), White House Champion of Change (2014), Presidential Leadership Scholar (2015), and 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs presented by Goldman Sachs (2015). He is also a Council Member of NationSwell (2016), an Unusual VC Academy Partner (2018), and a Truman National Security Fellow (2018).

Jake has been interviewed on ABC, Al Jazeera America, BBC World Service, CNN, Fox Business and MSNBC’s Morning Joe and received coverage in the Christian Science Monitor, Devex, Forbes, Huffington Post, The New York Times, Stanford Magazine, Fox News, and others. He currently lives in Washington, D.C., and has spent 20 years living amongst the very people he endeavors to empower—first in combat, then in conflict prevention and stabilization—fighting to bring the freedom of lasting meaningful choices to communities both at home and abroad. Jake is married to the love of his life and is the proud father of a 15-year-old entrepreneur and artist.