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Jim O’Neill serves as the 26th Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services. He also serves as the Acting Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Acting Administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
As the principal deputy and chief advisor to the Secretary, Deputy Secretary O’Neill helps Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. set and execute policies across the Department to make America healthy again with rigorous science, radical transparency, and innovation. He works every day to ensure health care is affordable and accessible.
An entrepreneurial leader and experienced CEO, O’Neill has worked to improve health care for more than 30 years.
After starting his career as a White House and Senate staffer, Deputy Secretary O’Neill served at HHS from 2002 to 2008. As the Principal Associate Deputy Secretary, he led several major reforms at the Department, including an overhaul of food safety and the implementation of the FDA Amendments Act of 2007 to improve drug and device safety. He also helped design and launch the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response.
Following his first stint at HHS, O’Neill became a managing director at Clarium Capital, a global macro investment fund based in San Francisco. As CEO of The Thiel Foundation, he funded innovative nonprofits that promote technology and freedom and co-founded the Thiel Fellowship, where he helped launch the careers of young entrepreneurs who founded science and technology companies worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
Prior to his Senate confirmation, O’Neill was the CEO of SENS Research Foundation where he led efforts to research and develop regenerative medicine solutions for age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s, cancer, and heart disease. Under his leadership, SENS made progress toward rejuvenating the immune system, eliminating senescent cells, rejuvenating the neocortex, and reversing mitochondrial mutations.
Deputy Secretary O’Neill brings a strong record of driving innovation, guiding complex organizations, and achieving science-based results to his role as Deputy Secretary. The son of an Air Force pilot, he spent his childhood in San Antonio. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale and a master’s from the University of Chicago. He has three children.