Who needs Romney when Obama already has a Bainie?

“Jeffrey Zients, Deputy Director for Management and Chief Performance Officer

Jeffrey Zients was confirmed by the Senate on June 19, 2009 as the Deputy Director for Management of the Office of Management and Budget and the nation’s first Federal Chief Performance Officer, and served as OMB’s acting director from July-November 2010. He has twenty years of business experience as a CEO, management consultant and entrepreneur with a deep understanding of business strategy, process reengineering and financial management. His expertise extends across a broad range of industries and geographies. Zients served as CEO and Chairman of The Advisory Board Company and Chairman of the Corporate Executive Board, firms that are leading providers of performance benchmarking and best practices across a wide range of industries, assisting senior executives at over 5,000 businesses to improve the efficiency of their operations. Zients began his career in management consulting at Bain & Company and Mercer Management Consulting, where he focused on developing strategies and improving operations of Fortune 1000 companies. Immediately prior to his Senate confirmation Zients founded an investment firm focused primarily on growth companies in the business and healthcare services sectors. He also co-founded The Urban Alliance Foundation, a non-profit organization that partners with corporations to provide economically disadvantaged youth with year-round paid internships, adult mentors and job training. Zients graduated summa cum laude from Duke University with a degree in Political Science. He and his wife Mary live in Washington, D.C. and have four children.”

“Jeffrey Zients tapped to lead Office of Management and Budget

By Ed O'Keefe

President Obama has tapped Jeffrey D. Zients to serve as acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, the White House announced Tuesday.

This will be Zients’s second turn as acting director of the agency responsible for crafting the White House federal budget proposal and handling various government management concerns. Though Zients has no federal budget-writing experience, he led last year’s review of plans to reorganize federal agencies and the drafting of contingency plans ahead of last year’s threatened government shutdown.

Zients, 45, takes over for Jacob J. Lew, who was tapped this month to replace departing White House Chief of Staff William Daley. The appointment does not require Senate confirmation.

A Washington native, Zients (whose last name rhymes with “pints”) attended the St. Albans prep school and graduated from Duke University. He briefly worked at the consulting firm Bain & Co. in Boston and later returned to Washington, where he became a close confidant of David G. Bradley, owner of Atlantic Media and the Corporate Executive Board.

“I’ve had 6,000 colleagues, and he is the most impressive aggregation of talent I’ve ever worked with,” Bradley said of Zients in an interview last year.

Zients first earned attention in the Washington area after unsuccesfully leading a team of investors who sought to buy and operate the new Washington Nationals baseball team. In an interview last year, he did not rule out bidding for another professional sports team in the future.”