Neera Tanden

Neera Tanden is the President of the Center for American Progress and Counselor to the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Tanden has served in both the Obama and Clinton administrations, as well as presidential campaigns and think tanks. Most recently, Tanden served as the Chief Operating Officer for the Center, leading strategic planning of the organization, managing all operations including all of the organization’s finance and fundraising efforts, and serving as a key member of CAP’s executive team. Tanden focused the organization on measuring the impact of the Center’s work. Tanden previously served as senior advisor for health reform at the Department of Health and Human Services, advising Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and working on President Barack Obama’s health reform team in the White House to pass the bill. In that role, she developed policies around reform and worked with Congress on particular provisions of the legislation. Prior to that, Tanden was the director of domestic policy for the Obama-Biden presidential campaign, where she managed all domestic policy proposals. Tanden had also served as policy director for the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign where she directed all policy work, ranging from domestic policy to the economy to foreign affairs, and managed day-to-day policy announcements. In that role, she also oversaw the debate preparation process for then-Sen. Clinton (D-NY). Before the presidential campaign, Tanden was Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at CAP. She was one of the first senior staff members at the Center, joining as Senior Vice President for Domestic Policy when CAP first opened its doors. In between, Tanden was legislative director for Sen. Clinton, where she oversaw all policy in the Senate office. In 2000 she was Hillary Clinton’s deputy campaign manager and issues director for her Senate campaign in New York. Tanden also served as associate director for domestic policy in the Clinton White House and senior policy advisor to the first lady. Tanden currently has a regular column for The New Republic online and has appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” ABC’s “This Week,” “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” MSNBC, CNN, and Fox. She was recently named one of the “Most Influential Women in Washington” by National Journal and received the India Abroad Publisher’s Award for Excellence in 2011. She received her bachelor of science from UCLA and her law degree from Yale Law School.