Jesse H. Ruiz (born February 17, 1965) is an American politician, lawyer, and businessman. He has previously held the positions of deputy governor of Illinois for education, chairman of the Illinois State Board of Education, president of the Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners, vice president of the Chicago Board of Education, and interim CEO of Chicago Public Schools.. He currently works in the private sector as chief compliance officer and general counsel to the Vistria Group.
As a lawyer, Ruiz spent more than two decades as a partner at the firm Drinker Biddle & Reath. He is the former president of the Chicago Bar Association.
Ruiz has been on the boards of a number of nonprofits, including the Chicago Community Trust. Ruiz also spent many years as a member of the board of directors for the company Commonwealth Edison.
In 2018, he unsuccessfully sought the Democratic Party nomination for Illinois Attorney General.
Early life and education
Ruiz was born February 17, 1965 in Chicago. Ruiz was the son of Mexican immigrants. From 1948 through 1955. his father was an undocumented immigrant. His father had originally come to the United States legally in 1943 as part of the bracero program, and ultimately received a green card.
Ruiz is the youngest of four children.
Ruiz grew up in the Roseland neighborhood of Chicago.
For elementary school, Ruiz attended St. Anthony's.
Ruiz graduated from Marist High School in 1983. He had been an honors student. In order to commute from his house to the high school, he needed to take three different Chicago Transit Authority busses.
Ruiz began his college career attending University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in its engineering program. However, by February of his freshman year, he was failing several classes, which he would retrospectively attribute to, "a combination of being unfocused and enjoying campus life too much." He dropped-out of the school, returning home and enrolling himself at Thornton Community College, while working part time as an auxiliary clerk at the American Medical Association. He then reapplied to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, this time seeking to be in its economics program. He was readmitted to the university. He graduated from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1988 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics.
Beginning in 1992, Ruiz attended University of Chicago Law School, where he was editor of the University of Chicago Law School Round Table. While at University of Chicago Law School, he attended classes taught by then-professors Barack Obama and Elena Kagan. The course he took that was taught by Obama was a seminar course on racism and law. He graduated from with his Juris Doctor in 1995.
Private sector career
In order to pay for his college tuition, Ruiz worked a variety of jobs, including jobs as a retail clerk, handyman, machine operator, and meter reader.
After college, but before attending law school, Ruiz was a member of sales departments of Inland Steel Company and Ryerson Coil Processing Company. In total, he spent four years working in the steel industry.
Prior to practicing law, Ruiz also was a management consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton, where he was a member of the operations management group. He worked there from 1995 through 1997.
On October 30, 2006, Ruiz became a member of the board of directors of Commonwealth Edison. He continued to serve on the board for many years.
Since September 2021, Ruiz has served as chief operating officer and general counsel to the Vistria Group.
Legal career
Ruiz was sworn into the bar in 1995.
In 1997, Ruiz was hired as an associate by Gardner Carton & Douglas. The firm would later merge into Drinker Biddle & Reath. Ruiz was a partner at the law firm for over twenty years. He focused on corporate securities, mergers and acquisitions and the representation of public and middle-market companies. He would leave his role in the firm in 2019. He worked with companies such as Walmart, Exelon.
Ruiz served as legal counsel to the Illinois Legislative Latino Caucus and the Illinois Legislative Latino Caucus Foundation.
Ruiz was on the American Bar Association's Commission on Hispanic Legal Rights and Responsibility, to which the president of the ABA had appointed him in August 2013.
Ruiz served as president of the Hispanic Lawyers Association of Illinois, chairman of the Hispanic Lawyers Scholarship Fund of Illinois, chairman of the Chicago Committee on Minorities in Large Law Firms.
Ruiz has taught as an adjunct professor in corporate law at UIC John Marshall Law School.