WHO’S ATTENDING
Advice
Council
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Addisu Demissie is a senior Democratic strategist who has overseen organizations with budgets of up to $50 million and managed complex teams under intense public scrutiny. He has served as Campaign Manager for Governor Gavin Newsom (CA) and U.S. Senator Cory Booker (NJ), and worked on five of the last six Democratic presidential campaigns, including senior national political roles in 2016, 2020, and 2024. As a Senior Advisor to the 2020 Democratic National Convention, he helped design and produce the party's first fully virtual convention, managing speaker coordination and segment production under unprecedented constraints. As Executive Director of More Than A Vote, the civic engagement organization co-founded by LeBron James, he led voter mobilization efforts at the intersection of politics, culture, and entertainment. He has also been a regular co-host of Pod Save America and a political contributor for MSNBC and CNN. After more than a decade running California-based 50+1 Strategies, Demissie recently closed the firm to focus on a new chapter. He is now co-developing In The Arena, a multi-season political documentary series following Democratic candidates through the 2026 and 2028 election cycles, and is pursuing several independent political projects. Addisu is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Amber F. McReynolds was appointed to the Postal Service Board of Governors by the President and was confirmed by the United States Senate on May 13, 2021. On November 14, 2024, she was elected by her fellow Governors to serve as Chairwoman of the Board. She previously served as Vice-chair and she chairs the Board’s Election and Government Mail Committee, and serves on the Operations and Audit and Finance Committees. McReynolds is a leading expert on election administration, policy, and innovation. Her professional career has been focused on strengthening democratic institutions with a goal of improving the voting experience for all: first as an election official, serving as the director of elections for the City and County of Denver, Colorado; then as a thought leader and founding chief executive officer for a nonpartisan election policy organization; and now serving as an elections consultant and advisor supporting election officials, government institutions, businesses, and nonpartisan organizations across the United States. She has proven that designing pro-voter policies, voter-centric processes, and modernizing technology will improve the voting experience for all. 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 and awarded the 2022 Alumni Achievement Award by the University of Illinois. McReynolds is the co-author of the book When Women Vote and regularly delivers speeches on how to improve and strengthen election processes and improve the voting experience. She serves on the National Election Task Force on Election Crises and the National Council on Election Integrity. She also serves as an advisory board member for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Election and Data Science Lab, Courageous Colorado board member and chair, board member for Represent Women, an advisor to Civic Resolve, a member of Leadership Now and the Colorado Women’s Chamber, along with other national advisory boards. McReynolds also served on the 2021 Colorado Independent Redistricting Commission. McReynolds holds a Masters of Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. Amber enjoys spending time with her two children - Klara and Kenton. Their family motto is to have courage and be kind!
Ted Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/amber_mcreynolds_an_election_system_that_puts_voters_not_politicians_first
Time magazine article: Amber McReynolds Is Helping the Country Vote-By-Mail in 2020 | Time
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Claudia serves as the Director of Kindred, a foundation that believes in relational architecture, and works at the nexus of law, justice and kinship for the human and more than human. She is also on faculty at UCLA School of Law and in the Gender Studies department where her scholarship has focused on trauma and healing informed practices. She is currently Senior Advisor to For Freedoms, an artist collective that centers art and creativity as a catalyst for transformative connection and collective liberation. She is also the founding co-director of the Center for Justice at UCLA, home of the Prison Education Program. Claudia has devoted her life to service through community organizing, consciousness-raising across silos, coalition-building, teaching, and advocacy through law & policy and the arts.
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Gregory Moore’s 40-year journalism career was capped by his 14-year tenure as editor of The Denver Post during which time the newspaper won four consecutive Pulitzer Prizes, including for coverage of the Aurora Theater shooting in 2012. He joined The Post in 2002 propelling it to one of the nation’s best regional newspapers. He oversaw coverage of the 2008 Democratic National Convention at which Barack Obama accepted his party’s nomination for president. He also rebuilt the paper’s online news operation, and hired the nation’s first marijuana editor at a mainstream newspaper. After retiring from The Denver Post in 2016, he became editor-in-chief of Deke Digital, a Colorado-based thought leadership company. In 2023, he started his own thought leadership firm, Klowtify, where he is CEO. Greg worked at The Boston Globe from 1986 to 2002 and became the paper’s first Black managing editor in 1994. A native of Cleveland, Ohio, he is a graduate of Ohio Wesleyan University. Greg was co-chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board where he served for nine years. He is chairman of the Boettcher Foundation, president of the Denver Civil Service Commission and a trustee at the University of Denver and Gary Community Ventures. He has received the Benjamin C. Bradlee Editor of the Year Award from the National Press Foundation, the Ohio Wesleyan University Distinguished Alumni Award, and is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame and the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.
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Dr. Jiggy Geronimo is former neuroscientist turned social justice advocate, bringing her research expertise and understanding of the mind to her work on emotions-first and content-first political narratives. She is the Founder and Principal of JG Insights LLC, a progressive consulting firm that innovates emotions-first and content-first communications designed for the modern media environment, builds and fosters transformational coalitions, and moves campaign strategies that win hearts and minds. Jiggy was previously the founding Executive Director of the Research Collaborative where she helped coordinate the national #CountEveryVote campaign to protect the 2020 election. She also ran policy campaigns for democracy in over 10 states across the country during her time at Voting Rights Lab and Indivisible. Prior to a career in politics, Jiggy earned her PhD in neuroscience at UC San Francisco and taught undergraduate biology courses at the University of San Francisco. Jiggy enjoys cooking, running, and hiking in the mountains.
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Jonathan Paik (JP), Executive Director of OC Action, is striving to transform Orange County by steering the collective power of local communities through organizing and civic engagement. JP organized Asian American and Latinx communities to challenge cities like Fullerton to transition from at-large to district elections, uplifting the voices of traditionally marginalized voters of color around issues like health care, housing, immigration, and education. He has led organizing around the DREAM Act and ballot measure campaigns that advanced critical economic and racial justice issues, and congressional and county sheriff campaigns to promote bold new leadership in the region. JP also currently serves on the board of the Alliance for Youth Action, a national youth network of civic engagement organizations that grow progressive people power across America by empowering local young people’s organizations to strengthen democracy, fix the economy, and correct injustices through on-the-ground organizing.
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