Larry Irving | Chair, PBS Board of Directors

Washington, D.C.

Larry Irving is the President of the Irving Group, a consulting firm providing strategic planning and consulting services to international telecommunications, media and technology companies, non-profit organizations, and philanthropies.  Irving is also an operating partner and chief public policy, ESG and DEI advisor to ZMC, a private equity firm. 

Prior to founding the Irving Group in 1999, Mr. Irving served for almost seven years as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information (NTIA), where he was a principal advisor to the President, Vice President and Secretary of Commerce on domestic and international telecommunications and information technology issues.  Mr. Irving also served on the Clinton-Gore and Obama-Biden transition teams as a senior member of their technology policy groups.

Mr. Irving was one of the principal architects and advocates of the Clinton Administration's telecommunications and Internet policies, and was a point person in the Clinton Administration's successful efforts to reform the United States telecommunications law, resulting in passage of the most sweeping change in America’s telecommunications laws in 60 years. In large part due to his work to promote policies and develop programs to ensure access to advanced telecommunications and information technologies, Mr. Irving was named one of the fifty most influential persons in the "Year of the Internet" by Newsweek Magazine.  In 2019 Mr. Irving was elected to the Internet Hall of Fame for his pioneering efforts identifying the "digital divide" and advocating for domestic and international policies to increase more equitable access to the Internet and related technologies.

Mr. Irving is the Chairman of the Board of the Public Broadcasting Service. He currently serves as a member of the Boards of Directors of Education Networks of America; The Second City; The Schools, Hospitals and Libraries Broadband Coalition; The Texas Tribune; and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation.  He also serves as a member of Northwestern University's Board of Trustees, as president of Northwestern's Alumni Association, on the Board of Visitors for the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences of Northwestern University and the Board of Visitors for Stanford Law School.

He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Northwestern University and is a recipient of the University’s Alumni Merit Award for distinguished professional achievement and is a Salute to Excellence Honoree of the Northwestern University Black Alumni Association. He is also a graduate of Stanford University School of Law, where he was elected President of his graduating class and is a Stanford Associate.