Heather McGhee

Vice President, Policy & Outreach, Demos

Heather C. McGhee is the Vice President of Policy and Outreach. She helps to set Demos’ strategy organization-wide and oversees the Communications and Advocacy Departments. She is a frequent writer, speaker and media commentator on issues of democracy reform, economic opportunity, racial equity and financial regulation. In 2010, she became a contributor to Countdown with Keith Olbermann on Current TV. She is also a regular guest on MSNBC, Fox News and CNN. Her opinions, writing and research have appeared in numerous outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, National Public Radio, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. She is the co-author of a chapter on retirement insecurity in the book Inequality Matters: The Growing Economic Divide in America and its Poisonous Consequences (New Press, 2005).

In 2009, she co-chaired a task force within Americans for Financial Reform that helped shape key provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In 2008, she served as the Deputy Policy Director in charge of Domestic and Economic Policy with the John Edwards for President campaign, helping craft that campaign’s agenda-setting policies to end poverty, halt global climate change, reform financial services, and other far-reaching aims. She holds a B.A. in American Studies from Yale University and a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley School of Law

Issues: Anti-Poverty programs, Anti-Trust Regulations, Bank Bail Out, Bank Bonuses, Banking and Finance, Budget and Tax Policy, Business, Corporate Incentives, Discretionary Spending, Economic Mobility, Efficient Government, Entrepreneurialism, Family/Medical leave, Fannie/Freddie, Federal Budget, Financial Markets, Government Investment, Healthcare, Housing Market Collapse, Jobs, Labor Force, Living Wage, Medicare/Medicaid, Middle Class, Multi-national corporations, Municipal/State Budgets, National Debt, Off Shore Tax Shelters, OSHA, Payroll Taxes, Privatization, Ratings Agencies, Retirement, Securitization, Small Business, Social Insurance, Social Investment, Social Security, Too Big To Fail, Unemployment Insurance, Unfunded Mandates, Unions, US Infrastructure, Wealth Creation, Welfare, Workforce Development

Experience:

• Program Associate, Economic Opportunity Program, Demos
• Deputy Policy Director, Domestic and Economic Policy, John Edwards 2008 Presidential Campaign
• Chairman, Systemic Risk and Resolution Authority Policy Task Force, Americans for Financial Reform

Education:

J.D., School of Law, University of California Berkeley
B.A., American Studies, Yale University