JOHN KIRTLEY

FOUNDER & CHAIRMAN, STEP UP FOR STUDENTS, TAMPA

Few private citizens have impacted education in Florida and nationally as much as Kirtley, managing partner and co-founder of Tampa private equity firm Keswick. Before Keswick, he co-founded two other private equity firms, KLH Capital and Florida Capital Partners. He started his career after the University of Virginia at Chemical Venture Partners. In 1998, he started the Children’s Scholarship Fund of Tampa Bay for low-income students to attend the school of their choice. In just three months, 12,500 applied for 750 scholarships. He went to the Legislature and in 2001 got it to create tax credit scholarships, which allowed companies to direct their tax obligations into scholarships for low-income students to attend private school or public schools outside their district. From there, state support of students wanting an alternative to public schools blossomed. In 2023, the Legislature created universal scholarships. Last year, more than 400,000 students received scholarships.