Tom Wheeler

Tom Wheeler is a visiting fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings and a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is also a businessman, author, and was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from 2013 to 2017. 

For over four decades, Wheeler has been involved with new telecommunications networks and services. At the FCC he led the efforts that resulted in the adoption of net neutrality, privacy protections for consumers, and increased cybersecurity, among other policies. As an entrepreneur, he started or helped start multiple companies offering innovative cable, wireless, and video communications services. He is the only person to be selected to both the Cable Television Hall of Fame and the Wireless Hall of Fame, a fact President Obama joked made him “the Bo Jackson of telecom.”  

Filmmaker Ken Burns described Wheeler as “one of the foremost explainers of technology and its effects throughout our history.” His most recent book is “TECHLASH: Who Makes the Rules in the Digital Gilded Age?” (Brookings Press, 2023). He is also the author of “From Gutenberg to Google: The History of Our Future” (Brookings Press, 2019), updated and reissued in paperback as “From Gutenberg to Google and On to AI“ (Brookings Press 2024), as well as “Take Command: Leadership Lessons from the Civil War” (Doubleday, 2000), and “Mr. Lincoln’s T-Mails: The Untold Story of How Abraham Lincoln Used the Telegraph to Win the Civil War” (HarperCollins, 2006).  

Affiliations and external activities

• Actility, S.A. – Board Member
• Gerson Lehrman Group – Consultant 
• Global Counsel – Senior Advisor
• RapidSOS – Advisory Board
• Third Bridge – Consultant
• Harvard Kennedy School – Senior Research Fellow