Jay Hein is President of the Sagamore Institute, an Indianapolis-based think tank that he helped found in 2004. He also serves as Managing Director of ISOKO Institute, a think tank that promotes private enterprise in Africa.

He was Deputy Assistant to President George W. Bush and Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives from August 2006 to August 2008. Jay serves as Distinguished Senior Fellow at Baylor University’s Institute for the Study of Religion and directs the Foundation for American Renewal, founded by US Senator Dan Coats. He was appointed by Governor Mitch Daniels in 2010 to serve as a member of the Indiana Commission on Community Service and Volunteerism. 

Earlier in his career, Jay was a welfare reform policy advisor to Governor Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin from 1994 to 1997 and director of civil society programs at the Hudson Institute from 1997 to 2004. He received a BA from Eureka College and an Honorary Doctor of Laws from Indiana Wesleyan University. Jay and his family live in Indianapolis.