Michael G. Riley

Michael Riley is president and editor in chief of The Chronicle of Higher Education Inc., where he guides the company’s strategic direction and leads the business, technology, and editorial departments. Riley brings with him more than 35 years of innovation in navigating the nexus of journalism, digital technology, and business.

Before joining The Chronicle in 2013, Riley was editorial director of Bloomberg Government, a D.C.-based start-up that analyzed the business impact of government actions. Riley had previously been editor and senior vice president of Congressional Quarterly, directing the coverage of Congress and national politics. Before CQ, Riley served as editor of The Roanoke Times, in Virginia, and was a senior correspondent and bureau chief for Time magazine. He started his career as a newspaper reporter at The Dispatch, in Lexington, N.C.

In the early 1990s, Riley became intrigued by the emergence of online technology and the internet. In 1994, he was awarded a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard and studied the disruptive forces that were beginning to transform journalism. A year later, Riley was tapped to create a Time-CNN start-up venture called allpolitics.com, which became one of the nation’s first comprehensive political websites. Riley holds an M.P.A. from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, where he studied politics and economics. He earned his B.A. in English from Wake Forest University. He lives in Arlington, Va., with his wife, Arline, and they have two daughters.

Email him at michael.riley@chronicle.com.