Austin Beutner is a problem solver who’s spent the past 17 years making life better for people across Los Angeles.
He authored the Proposition 28 arts education ballot measure, founded the nonprofit Vision to Learn, served as Superintendent of the LA Unified School District, was Publisher and CEO of the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union Tribune, served as First Deputy Mayor and was CEO of Evercore, a publicly-traded company that he founded.
After sustaining serious injuries in a mountain biking accident, he stepped away from business and has devoted the past 17 years to public service and social entrepreneurship in Los Angeles. Austin recently authored and led a coalition to pass a statewide initiative, Proposition 28, which creates funding to hire additional arts teachers to provide arts and music education to all 6 million children in California public schools. This ongoing investment of about $1 billion per year, without raising taxes, is the largest investment in arts and music in our nation’s history.
Austin Beutner while serving as Superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District.
His nonprofit Vision To Learn has helped ensure nearly 4 million children in low-income communities across the country received vision screenings and has provided more than 600,000 children with glasses, at no cost to them or their family.
As LAUSD Superintendent (2018-21), Austin started Primary Promise to add reading specialists in elementary school classrooms to ensure students have a foundation in reading and math. The program has helped tens of thousands of children become readers. Parents Supporting Teachers, the largest parent-led support group in Los Angeles, calls this effort “the single most effective early literacy program in the nation.”
Under Austin’s leadership during the pandemic, LA schools operated the largest food relief effort in the nation, providing children and adults with more than 140 million meals. He ensured that 500,000 students and their families were provided with a free computer and internet access to stay connected with their school community and continue learning.
Teachers, parents and kids rose to the challenge, and LA’s elementary and middle school students had the biggest gains in reading of any large school district in the country.
As First Deputy Mayor (2010-2011), Austin oversaw 13 city departments, focusing on job creation and helping small businesses succeed. He led a team that cut in half the time it takes to open a restaurant, and spearheaded the permitting process for big projects like the Wilshire Grand Center, the tallest building west of the Mississippi, where he developed an innovative plan to support employees of the previous hotel while the new building was being built.
Prior to his work in local government, Beutner founded and was Co-CEO of Evercore, a financial services firm that specializes in solving complex problems for businesses, nonprofits and governments, with thousands of employees and clients around the world.
A Democrat, Austin started his career in public service in the Clinton Administration. In 2016, he signed an Amicus Brief for the US Supreme Court in support of the Obama Administration’s policies expanding protections for immigrant parents and children.
Austin and his wife Virginia raised their four adult children in Los Angeles.