Erynn Fernandez has been the Executive Director for the Democratic Party of Hawaiʻi (DPH) since June of 2019, completing the first all mail ballot Party-run Presidential Primary, the first State eConvention in 2020, and part of the team that brought about the first hybrid State Convention in 2022. In February of 2023 she was elected to the Executive Committees of both the Association of State Democratic Committees (ASDC) and the State Association of Democratic Executive Directors (ASDED) as the ASDED Vice President for the West and Midwest States.
As the former Committee Clerk for the Hawaiʻi State Senate Committee on Housing, Erynn organized Senator Chang's first Housing Delegation to Singapore and Hong Kong in May of 2019. Prior to taking on the Executive Director position she worked on the 2018 DPH Coordinated Campaign, and volunteered her time as an officer and as the chair of various committees and conventions for the organization. She has been the board chair and an officer of several organizations throughout the state. Prior to her political work, Erynn had previous careers as a sales executive, managing director, and surgical administrator. She attended Punahou School and Santa Clara University.
Rina Shah is a strategic consultant, media commentator, & millennial entrepreneur based in Washington, DC. Prior to launching Rilax Strategies – a government and public affairs firm - Rina served as a senior staffer to Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ-5) and Rep. Jeff B. Miller (FL-1). Her expertise includes building winning strategies for political campaigns as well as coordinating public affairs efforts for Fortune 500 companies.
She currently serves as an Advisor to VoteRunLead, Spokeswoman for NextGen GOP, a 2015 Founder of RightNOW Women PAC, Co-Chair of Concord 51's DC Chapter, and as an inaugural member of the U.S. House of Representatives Republican Conference's Indian American Advisory Council.
For more than 24 years, April England-Albright has worked in the area of civil rights law, first as a partner at Chestnut, Sanders, Sanders, Pettaway, Campbell and Albright and institutions then through her own law firm, where her experiences included serving as an attorney in the “Black Farmers Lawsuit”, which to date is the largest discrimination lawsuit against the United States, and litigating cases, which addressed race discrimination in the workplace, voting disenfranchisement caused by gerrymandering and other voter suppression tactics, and criminal defense. She also served as a Presiding Municipal Judge for the historical City of Selma, Alabama.
For the past eight years she has worked for the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, where she served as a Supervising Attorney leading investigations, some class-wide, to determine whether secondary and post-secondary in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida were in compliance of Title VI (race), Title IX (sex), Section 504 and Title II (disability).
Ms. England-Albright is now the Legal Director and Acting Chief of Staff of Black Voters Matter Fund, which is an organization that seeks to build power in black and marginalized communities in over eleven states through electoral and issue organizing. In these roles she leads the organization’s restorative justice work and voter protection litigation. Ms. England-Albright has served on the boards of many civil rights organizations, which focus on preserving the civil rights and human rights of all individuals and she has been honored as a Civil Rights Pioneer in her field.
Deb Otis is the Director of Research and Policy at FairVote. With a decade of experience in research and analytics, Deb is passionate about sharing the data-driven case for why our country needs election reform. In addition to ranked choice voting and proportional representation, Deb's areas of research include comparative electoral systems, political polarization, redistricting, representation for women and people of color, the electoral college, and election recounts. Deb is a graduate of Boston University with degrees in Economics and Physics and she lives in Washington, DC.
Kenia is the statewide coordinator for Washington for Equitable Representation (WER), a project of the Washington Community Alliance. WER is a statewide, multi-racial coalition fighting to achieve equitable representation through proportional ranked-choice voting and other democracy reforms.
Kenia lives and grew up in Yakima, WA. She graduated from Yakima Valley College and became a community organizer with the United Farm Workers Foundation –working with farm workers in eastern Washington and in the Yakima valley at the peak of the pandemic.
She has organized undocumented students and other college students to advocate for free college and provided critical support as justice housing intake coordinator at Yakima volunteer attorney services.
In 2022, Kenia was part of a panel discussion, hosted by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, focused largely on COVID-19’s disproportionate impact on Latino’s alongside Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Daniella Ballou-Aares is the CEO and Co-Founder of the Leadership Now Project, a national membership organization of business and thought leaders committed to renewing American democracy.
Daniella began her career at Bain & Company, working across the firm’s offices in the US, South Africa, and the UK. From there, she became a founding Partner at Dalberg, where she led the Americas business and transformed it from a seven-person startup to the largest global social impact strategy firm, which today has 25+ offices across Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, and the US. Daniella went on to spend five years in the Obama Administration as the Senior Advisor for Development to the Secretary of State, serving under Secretaries Clinton and Kerry, where she was instrumental to negotiating the 192-country agreement on the Sustainable Development Goals.
Daniella’s perspectives have been featured in the Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, Fast Company, POLITICO, and the World Economic Forum, among others. Daniella is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and was a 2014 World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, an MPA from the Kennedy School and graduated cum laude from Cornell with a BS in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering. Daniella lives in New York City with her husband and two daughters.
Charlotte Clymer is a writer, LGBTQ activist, communications consultant, and military veteran. She writes "Charlotte's Web Thoughts," a Substack blog/newsletter that was nominated for the 2023 GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Blog. She was previously a Fellow at the Georgetown Institute of Politics and a press secretary at the Human Rights Campaign. She was named to Fortune Magazine's "40 under 40" list in 2020 for her writing and advocacy. She is based in Washington, D.C.
A’shanti F. Gholar serves as the president of Emerge, the only organization dedicated to recruiting and training Democratic women to run for office. In this role, she leads the organization and steers its overall strategy and direction, overseeing a national staff as well as affiliates across the country.
For over 15 years, A’shanti has been a grassroots organizer and activist for women, communities of color and progressive causes. She has experience in building coalitions, program development and community and political engagement.
A’shanti was named by She The People as one of the women of color in politics who would play an impactful role in the 2020 elections and beyond. She was featured as a political influencer in CQ Roll Call Magazine, named a top woman of color in policy by Walker’s Legacy, and was awarded the “Changemaker” award by African American Women in Business Careers.
In addition, A’shanti serves as a Sisters on the Planet Ambassador for OxFam America, an Equity Advisor for Sephora, and as an Advisory Board Member for Global GAIN. She is also the founder of The Brown Girls Guide to Politics, an award-winning podcast that was featured as one of the top political podcasts by Time Magazine, Teen Vogue, and Vanity Fair.
Charlotte Hill is the director of the Democracy Policy Initiative at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy. A trained political scientist, Charlotte researches how to expand democratic access and equity through public policy. She regularly advises organizations focused on improving election and voting laws and increasing civic participation. Her work has been published in top political science journals including the Journal of Politics and Electoral Studies and featured in media outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, and CNN.
Before entering academia, Charlotte held senior communications roles for organizations including international advocacy platform Change.org. She recently co-founded Fix Our House, a new campaign for proportional representation in the U.S. House of Representatives, and formerly sat on the boards of national political reform organizations FairVote and RepresentUs. Charlotte is currently the vice president of the Public Ethics Commission in Oakland, California. She previously served as vice president of the San Francisco Elections Commission, where she helped oversee local election administration.
Certified Doer – Partnership Grower – Civic Connector
Jackie Glass is a self-proclaimed Certified Doer, Mama and Veteran from the Chicagoland area. She served in the United States Navy for eleven years as a cryptologist where she deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Currently, she serves as Delegate in the Virginia House of Delegates for the 89th district covering most of the city of Norfolk. As an elected official, she passed two bills in the 2022 General Assembly and is preparing legislation now for the 2023 General Assembly.
She moved to Virginia eight years ago and currently resides in heart of Norfolk, Ballentine Place. She holds a BS in Workforce Education Training and Development from Southern Illinois University. Jackie is a sneakerhead by marriage and loves to share her kicks as the “Laced-up Legislator.” Jackie, her husband, and two little citizens call Norfolk ‘our chosen hometown’.
Rebecca Chavez-Houck holds a BA in Journalism and Mass Communication and a Master of Public Administration (MPA), both from the University of Utah (U of U). She represented Salt Lake City’s District 24 in the Utah House of Representatives from 2008-18, focusing on public policy related to health and human services as well as voter engagement and access. Her leadership appointments included: House Minority Whip (2014-16) and House Minority Assistant Whip (2012-14).
She now provides leadership coaching and community engagement consulting through her public affairs firm, Aspira Public Affairs, LLC.
Legislative appointments that influenced her policy agenda include service on former Governor Jon Huntsman's 2009 Commission to Strengthen Utah's Democracy. Rebecca successfully sponsored bills establishing Election Day Voter Registration, Election Day Voting Centers, and policies for emergency voting in case of natural disasters, among other elections reforms. Her 2017 Ranked Choice Voting bill was a precursor to Utah’s 2018 RCV municipal pilot law. She is a 2012 Council of State Governments (CSG) Toll Fellows Graduate and served as Latino Voting and Elections Task Force Chair for the National Hispanic Caucus of State Legislators.
Rebecca was a public affairs staffer for a number of local Utah nonprofits from 1985 to 2007 and cultivated a parallel “career” as a volunteer for myriad local and national nonprofits. She has been honored extensively for her efforts. Rebecca teaches non-profit administration classes as adjunct faculty for the U of U’s MPA program.
Nelsie Yang serves as the elected Councilmember for the City of Saint Paul’s 6th Ward. At 27 years old and a daughter of Hmong refugees, she is the youngest and first Hmong American woman to be elected to St Paul’s City Council. Nelsie has a background in social work and social justice activism. As a councilmember, Nelsie leads alongside individuals, labor unions, and organizations. She is working to unite our society across race, class, and gender.
Jena Griswold is Colorado’s 39th Secretary of State. She was first elected in 2018 as the youngest elected Secretary of State in the United States. She was reelected to the office in 2022. Griswold grew up in a working-class family in rural Colorado and was the first person in her family to attend a four-year college and then law school. She knows first-hand how important it is for every vote to count and for every Coloradan's voice to be heard, no matter their background or income. She will protect our right to vote, fight secret political spending, improve transparency, and stand up to those who try to bend the rules or break the law.
Griswold has practiced international anti-corruption law and worked as a voter protection attorney, where she made sure Coloradans were able to participate in our democracy. She served as the Director of the Governor of Colorado’s DC Office, advocating on behalf of Colorado in D.C. During that time, Griswold was instrumental in bringing back hundreds of millions of relief dollars to help the Colorado communities hit by the 2013 flood. Before her election to Colorado Secretary of State, Griswold ran her own small business, a legal practice in Louisville.
Griswold holds a B.A. in Politics and Spanish Literature from Whitman College and a J.D from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Griswold is fluent in Spanish and a graduate of Estes Park High School in Estes Park, Colorado. In 2006, Griswold was awarded the Watson Fellowship, and in 2009, the Penn Law International Human Rights Fellowship. Griswold is not married and lives in Louisville, Colorado.
Ann Ravel was nominated to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) by President Obama on June 21, 2013. After her appointment received the unanimous consent of the United States Senate, Ms. Ravel joined the Commission on October 25, 2013. She served as Chair of the Commission for 2015 and Vice-Chair for 2014 before leaving in 2017.
Previously, Ms. Ravel served as Chair of the California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC), to which Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. appointed her. At the FPPC, Ms. Ravel oversaw the regulation of campaign finance, lobbyist registration and reporting, and ethics and conflicts of interest related to officeholders and public employees. During her tenure at the FPPC, Ms. Ravel was instrumental in the creation of the States’ Unified Network (SUN) Center, a web-based center for sharing information on campaign finance.
Before joining the FPPC, Ms. Ravel served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Torts and Consumer Litigation in the Civil Division of the United States Department of Justice. Ms. Ravel also worked as an attorney in the Santa Clara County Counsel’s Office, ultimately serving as the appointed County Counsel from 1998 until 2009. Ms. Ravel represented the County and its elected officials, provided advice on the state Political Reform Act, and initiated groundbreaking programs in elder abuse litigation, educational rights, and consumer litigation on behalf of the Santa Clara County government and the community.
Ms. Ravel has served as an elected Governor on the Board of Governors of the State Bar of California, a member of the Judicial Council of the State of California, and Chair of the Commission on Judicial Nominees Evaluation. In 2014, she was named a California Attorney of the Year by California Lawyer magazine for her work in Government law, and in 2007, the State Bar of California named Ms. Ravel Public Attorney of the Year for her contributions to public service.
Ms. Ravel received her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley and her J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Ms. Ravel is the daughter of a Latin American immigrant mother and an American father. She was raised in Latin America before her family settled in the San Francisco Bay area, which she considers home.
Amber McReynolds was appointed to the Postal Service Board of Governors by President Biden and was confirmed by the Senate on May 13, 2021. McReynolds is a leading expert on election administration and policy. Her professional career has been focused on strengthening democratic institutions with a goal of improving the voting experience for all. She is the Founding CEO of the National Vote at Home Institute, a non-partisan non-profit dedicated to expanding and improving vote-by-mail systems in all fifty states.
As the former Director of Elections for the City and County of Denver, Colorado, McReynolds led the implementation of a first-in-the-nation ballot tracking, reporting, and communication program to increase accountability and enhance security for mail ballots. Her efforts garnered national and international awards and helped to shape Colorado’s vote-by-mail expansion in 2013. In 2018, Governing Magazine named her as a Top Public Official of the Year for her work to improve the voting process. She was also recognized as a 2020 Top Women in Business in Colorado.
McReynolds is the co-author of the book “When Women Vote.” She also serves on the National Election Task Force on Election Crises, the National Council on Election Integrity, as an advisory board member for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Election and Data Science Lab, as a board member for Represent Women, as a board member for City Year Denver, and on various advisory boards for other national organizations focused on improving election administration.
McReynolds is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Letitia “Tish” James is the 67th Attorney General for the State of New York. With decades of experience and a long record of achievements, she is a powerful, effective attorney and lifelong public servant. When she was elected in 2018, she became the first woman of color to hold statewide office in New York and the first woman to be elected Attorney General.
In her first term, Attorney General James focused on protecting vulnerable New York residents and ensuring that individuals or companies that broke state laws were held accountable. She secured more than $7.5 billion for New York from those who broke state laws and took advantage of New Yorkers, including more than $2.5 billion from opioid manufacturers and distributors for their roles in the opioid epidemic. Under her leadership, the Office of the Attorney General helped remove more than 4,000 guns from New York communities, took down dozens of dangerous drug and gun trafficking rings throughout the state, and took legal action to stop the proliferation of ghost guns.
Attorney General James took on predatory landlords who harassed tenants and endangered children by violating New York’s lead paint laws. She protected New Yorkers’ health and the state’s natural resources by going after polluters and companies that flouted environmental protection laws. Attorney General James stood up for vulnerable populations by going all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop a question about citizenship from being added to the census and successfully protecting DACA.
She has been a national leader in the fight to defend access to reproductive health care, leading dozens of legal actions across the country to protect and expand access to this lifesaving care. Attorney General James also stood up against corruption and took strong action against officials who broke New York laws or workplace protection measure, regardless of their status or political affiliation.
Before serving as Attorney General, Letitia James was the Public Advocate for the City of New York. When she was elected in 2013, she became the first woman of color to hold citywide office. As Public Advocate, her office passed more legislation than all previous Public Advocates combined, including a groundbreaking law that banned questions about salary history from the employment process to address the pervasive gender wage gap. Prior to serving as Public Advocate, Letitia James represented the 35th Council District in Brooklyn in the New York City Council for ten years. As a Council Member, she passed the Safe Housing Act, legislation that forced landlords to improve living conditions for tenants in New York City’s worst buildings. Before her election to the City Council, Letitia James was head of the Brooklyn Regional Office of the New York State Attorney General’s Office.
Letitia James began her career as a public defender at the Legal Aid Society. A proud Brooklynite, she is a graduate of Lehman College and Howard University School of Law.
Erin Vilardi is the Founder and CEO of Vote Run Lead, the nation’s largest and most diverse training program for women to run for office and win. She first launched the program as Vice President of Program and Communications at The White House Project.
She has served as a Leadership Development Consultant for a range of clients, including Fortune 100 companies, global girls’ initiatives, and the U.S. Department of State. Vilardi is the co-author of the Athena CORE10©, an innovative set of leadership competencies for 21st century women leaders based on the latest research and gender analysis for the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College.
She was named a 2019 NYU Alumni Changemaker and a 2018 Champion of Change from UN Women NY. She has appeared on the mainstage at Personal Democracy Forum and the Skoll World Forum, on CNN, BBC, and Fox News and her work was featured in O, The Oprah Magazine, Marie Claire, New York Magazine, among others. She is an Executive Producer of Ann Richards’ Texas, a documentary about the late pioneering governor.
Liuba is the Founder and CEO of Vote Mama, the nation’s first Political Action Committee dedicated to electing progressive moms up and down the ballot, as well as the Founder and CEO of Vote Mama Foundation, the leading source of research and analysis about the political participation of mothers in the United States. Vote Mama Foundation is working toward gender equity by breaking the barriers mothers face running for office, normalizing mothers of young children running for office, and enabling legislators to pass family-friendly policies.
In 2018, Liuba ran a historic congressional campaign to represent New York’s 2nd District in the U.S. House of Representatives. She received the highest vote share of any Democrat to run against the incumbent in 25 years. Liuba raised over $2 million with no corporate PAC money and built a grassroots movement of volunteers that knocked over 250,000 doors. She petitioned the Federal Election Commission and became the first woman in history to receive federal approval to spend Campaign Funds on Childcare.
Throughout her career, Liuba has forged strategic partnerships between public, private, and nonprofit sector organizations to tackle issues including economic development, access to health care, and paid family leave. Together with UN Women, she launched the #IAmParent campaign for Parental Leave and was selected as a Global Champion for Women’s Economic Empowerment.
In 2019 and 2020, Liuba was selected as one of Long Island’s 100 Most Powerful People by City & State and was named to the Long Island Business News 40 Under 40 list. She has appeared on CNN, The Today Show, and MSNBC and featured in The Washington Post, TIME Magazine, and Huffington Post. Liuba holds an MBA with specializations in Management and Economics from the NYU Stern School of Business, and a BA in Politics and Russian from NYU. She lives on Long Island with her husband Christopher and children, Mila, Nicholas, and Andrew.
Brittany Buford is a New England native who specializes in data-driven relational organizing, door-to-door canvassing programs and public affairs. Her teams have previously focused on progressive movement campaigns to create structures of persuasion, advocacy, accountability and issue education. She has worked in campaign management since 2008 on both coordinated campaigns and independent expenditures. Previous campaigns she has worked are Planned Parenthood, Presidential Candidate Michael Bloomberg, Gubernatorial candidate Danielle Allen, Connecticut State Senator Ted Kennedy, Congressman Joe Courtney and Senator Chris Murphy among others.
Brittany's experience in campaign management provides insight into targeting core supporters and connecting voters of varying demographics with candidates and issues important to the current election.
Jessica Haller is the Executive Director of New Majority NYC, an organization focused on building political power for women in NYC. Jessica comes to this work as an entrepreneur, a climate advocate and a former candidate for NYC Council. As someone who always looks ahead 10 years, Jessica has co-founded start ups in the climate and in fin-tech sectors, worked in digital advertising, and on long term policy solutions to improve equity and resilience in NYC. Since 2007, Jessica has been a Leader with the Climate Reality Project. She holds an MPA in environmental science and policy form Columbia and a BS in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in the Bronx with her husband and four children.