Jeb has a 35-year career working with cities to establish new practices for local sustainability, social equity and justice. In the 1980s, as National Coordinator of Local Elected Officials for Social Responsibility, he led the establishment of the Sanctuary Cities movement in the United States. In 1989/90, he founded ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability, and as Secretary General from 1990-2000 built the worldwide organization. In this capacity, Jeb established the UN-sponsored, worldwide Local Agenda 21 initiative for urban sustainability planning, which by the year 2000 had involved more than 6,400 communities in 113 countries. He also co-founded ICLEI’s Cities for Climate Protection campaign, which engaged more than 500 cities in climate mitigation planning. 

As an economist and market analyst, in 2004 Jeb co-founded The Next Practice Ltd. business innovation consultancy with Prof. C.K. Prahalad, focused on developing product and business solutions to address poverty conditions among low-income populations. Jeb led ‘base of the pyramid’ product design and business planning projects for corporate clients in the banking, energy, and property sectors. In this work he also focused on providing community-based organizations and NGOs in India and North American with the local market and business analyses they needed to advance their development strategies.

In 2017 Jeb joined the 100 Resilient Cities team as Vice President, Solutions Development. He managed further development of 100RC's Partnership Platform, overseeing 115 corporate partnerships offering more that $200 million in pro bono services value to 100RC cities. He also oversaw 100RC's portfolio of planning and design tools, developing new tools that were deployed in cities on four continents.

Jeb is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Sustainability Leadership, Cambridge University. His research and publications span the topics of: regional impacts of government spending on industrial sectors and occupational groups; sizing and segmentation of emerging and informal sector consumer groups; local industrial cluster development strategies; sustainable development performance metrics; financing climate adaptation; urban slum uprgrading, and local sustainability planning.  He is the author of Welcome to the Urban Revolution: How Cities Are Changing the World. 

Jeb holds a Master’s degree from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and a BA in Economics summa cum laude from the University of Massachusetts. His awards include the Millennium Award for Best Sustainability Initiative (2000) from the European Environmental Agency/Princes’ Foundation, and the 2007 McKinsey Award for best article of the year from Harvard Business Review.