During his four years in office, former President Joe Biden appointed several Penn alumni and affiliates to key positions in his administration.
Biden has long held ties to the University of Pennsylvania, from serving as a Benjamin Franklin Professor of Presidential Practice to founding the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C. When he took office as the 47th President of the United States in 2021, a number of Penn graduates, administrators, and affiliates joined him at the nation’s capital.
Following the end of Biden’s term, The Daily Pennsylvanian looked back at some of the most notable Penn alumni and affiliates who served in his administration.
Antony Blinken, former secretary of state
Blinken served as the managing director of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement from 2017 to 2019, before leaving to work on Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign. During his term as Secretary of State, Blinken implemented U.S. foreign policy on the war in Ukraine, the Israel-Hamas conflict, and the removal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.
Blinken’s role in the Penn Biden Center gained a national spotlight in 2023 after the Department of Justice announced an investigation into classified documents from Biden’s time as vice president found in the Penn Biden Center. Rep. Brian McCaul (R-Texas), chair of the House foreign affairs committee, wrote a public letter to Blinken requesting information about Blinken’s responsibilities as managing director and his level of awareness of the presence of classified materials.
Biden said last year that he would like to return to the Penn Biden Center after his presidency. Blinken has not commented yet on any possible return.
Amy Gutmann, U.S. ambassador to Germany
Gutmann served for 18 years as Penn’s president — making her the longest serving president in University history — and was the U.S. ambassador to Germany from 2022 to 2024.
Gutmann resigned from her ambassadorship in 2024, stating that her husband’s “professional obligations” as a professor at Columbia University necessitated their return to the U.S.
During her presidency, Gutmann oversaw academic initiatives like the openings of the Perry World House and the Penn Biden Center and expanded support for programs for first-generation students. She also oversaw a slew of campus expansion projects, including the construction of Penn Park, Lauder College House, and the Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics.
Gutmann returned to the Penn faculty in August 2024 as a professor in the Annenberg School for Communication.
Gary Gensler, chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission
1978 Wharton graduate and 1979 Wharton MBA graduate Gary Gensler served as chair of the SEC during the Biden administration. Gensler headed initiatives to regulate the cryptocurrency market during his time in office.
In November, Gensler announced his decision to resign from the Commission at the end of Biden’s term, a year before his term as chair was supposed to end. He cited a tradition of SEC chairs resigning when a new administration is elected as the reason for his departure.
1968 Wharton graduate and President Donald Trump said in November that he would fire Gensler on “day one” of his presidency, although SEC commissioners are protected by law from termination without cause.
Isabel Guzman, administrator of the Small Business Administration
Guzman, a 1992 Wharton graduate, served in the cabinet as the head of the SBA during the Biden presidency. She took the helm of the SBA amid recovery efforts from the COVID-19 pandemic, deploying over $500 billion in aid to small businesses.
During her time at Penn, Guzman was involved in the Wharton Management Club and told the DP that the experiences she gained through the club helped her land her first job in the private sector before entering government. She also helped relaunch Festival Latino — now Festival Latinx — at Penn in 1991 after the festival had not occurred for several years.
“I thoroughly enjoyed my experience at Penn,” she told the DP. “It’s really a robust program at Wharton to connect you to the real world, to the private sector, and engage in whatever interest you have. So I think that was one of the real benefits.”
Guzman added that her decision to attend Wharton was "in some ways giving up on my other dual interest which was in government and policy in general.” She attributed her later engagement in government to her desire to continue pursuing this interest and said that she greatly benefitted from taking political science courses at Penn.
Guzman said that she was honored to serve as the administrator of the SBA and told the DP that this position was a “dream come true” for her due to her experiences working at the front office of her family’s small businesses.
“For me, it was coming full circle of being able to advocate on behalf of the very businesses that created my father’s livelihood and our ability to advance and pursue the American dream,” she said.
Rohit Chopra, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Chopra earned his MBA from the Wharton School in 2009 and served as Director of the CFPB from 2021 until he was fired by Trump on Feb. 1. The Director of the CFPB has a five-year term, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that the president has the right to fire the director before their term ends. He previously served as a commissioner on the Federal Trade Commission, a position to which Trump appointed him in 2018.
In 2022, during his term, Chopra delivered the Penn Program on Regulation’s 11th Annual Distinguished Lecture on Regulation at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. He discussed corporate recidivism and shared how the CFPB will “sharpen its focus on repeat offenders.”
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