Tony Miller

Managing Partner, Excolere Equity Partners; former Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Department of Education

Biography

Tony Miller is a founding partner and Chief Operating Officer of The Vistria Group, a Chicago-based private equity firm that invests in leading education, healthcare, and financial services companies. Vistria’s portfolio of education investments includes Penn Foster, the University of Phoenix, and HigherEducation.com.

From 2009 to 2013, Mr. Miller was the Deputy Secretary and Chief Operating Officer at the U.S. Department of Education where he oversaw day-to-day operations and was responsible for overseeing ~$100 billion in one-time education program funding as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which included a number of signature reform efforts including Race to the TopInvesting in Innovation, and School Improvement Grant/School Turnaround Programs. Miller also oversaw implementation of the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act which expanded federal Pell Grants and ended federally subsidized private loans, using all federal student loan funding for Direct Loans. In addition to his operational responsibilities, Mr. Miller led the Department’s education and workforce development missions to China, Korea, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Ecuador, Brazil and Russia.

Prior to his Presidential Appointment, Mr. Miller was a Director with Silver Lake, a global leader in technology investing.  Before joining Silver Lake, Mr. Miller was Executive Vice President Operations at LRN, a leading provider of governance, risk, compliance and ethics eLearning solutions.  Previously, Mr. Miller had been a Partner with McKinsey & Company. 

Mr. Miller holds an M.B.A. from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business where he completed his studies at Stanford’s Japan Center for Technology and Innovation and a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University.