On September 1, 2017, the White House announced that President Donald Trump had nominated Jackson to fill the open Democratic seat on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

[2] Jackson attended the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where he graduated summa cum laude with bachelor's degrees in philosophy and finance.

Prior to receiving his MBA in 2000, Jackson spent his summer as a Judicial Intern at the Supreme Court working for James C. Duff, Administrative Assistant to the Chief Justice.

At Harvard's Kennedy School, Jackson along with co-author Jesse Jannetta won the Taubman Prize for best thesis for their policy analysis of the Massachusetts Parole Board's Regional Reentry Center Initiative.

Prior to joining the Columbia Law faculty in 2009, he worked in investment banking at Bear Stearns, specialized in executive compensation and corporate governance at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, & Katz, and served as deputy director to Kenneth Feinberg at the United States Treasury, helping to establish executive pay rules for corporations such as AIG, Citigroup, and General Motors following the financial crisis of 2007–2008.

After being reported by The Wall Street Journal,[18] the Senate Banking Committee urged the SEC to fix the disparity in access,[19] though Jackson showed that the gap persisted weeks later.

[28] Together with Harvard professor Lucian Bebchuk, Jackson argued that the poison pill was unconstitutional through preemption of state anti-takeover laws by the Williams Act.

[31] The issue gained media attention, including from President Barack Obama, as Republicans attempted to move a measure through the Senate which would prevent the SEC from requiring such disclosure of political contributions.

[48] At his SEC nomination hearing, he told the story of his parents—his father working as an accounting clerk at an encyclopedia company and his mother holding part-time jobs to make ends meet, but their savings in the American stock market allowed him to attend college.