Jeff Greene

Greene was born in 1954 in Worcester, Massachusetts to a working class Jewish family. His father ran a business selling textile mill machinery. His mother was a Hebrew school instructor who taught Greene to "save his pennies, look for value, and never pay retail."

He graduated from Doherty Memorial High School in Worcester after his family moved to Florida in 1970 when his father lost his business, staying with his great-aunt while he finished school. In Florida, his father worked refilling vending machines and his mother worked as a waitress.

Greene worked many jobs to put himself through college at Johns Hopkins University, graduating in three years with a B.A. in economics and sociology. Later he attended Harvard Business School, where he earned his Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree in 1977. Greene lived in Southern California in the 1980s and 1990s and ran in the 1982 Republican primary for the 23rd Congressional District race. Greene lost the primary to David Armor who then lost to incumbent Democrat Anthony C. Beilenson.

In 2007, Greene married Chinese Australian real estate executive Mei Sze Chan, who is twenty years his junior in age. Chan was an ethnic Chinese refugee from Malaysia who first fled to Australia with her family before heading to New York City after college. In 2009, she gave birth to their first child, Malcolm. Greene and his wife now have three sons and live in Palm Beach. Greene was quoted as saying, "I just wish I had met Mei Sze 20 years ago.".

On April 30, 2010, Greene announced his intention to run as a Democrat for the United States Senate seat held by George LeMieux, saying, "I am an outsider, the only candidate who isn't a career politician. I've succeeded in the real world of hard work – the others have only succeeded at running for political office after office."

In February 2011, Greene became a signatory of The Giving Pledge.