Katherine Archuleta’s career has been built on her commitment to creating positive and productive environments for hearing the voices of those who are most affected by public policy decisions. From her earliest days in Denver Mayor Federico Peña’s administration to her work for President Obama as the Director of the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM), she has integrated her values of inclusive leadership in every role.
As OPM Director, she directed the federal government’s Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan in collaboration with the White House and all federal departments – working closely with her own staff and other government leaders. Katherine has taken her extensive experience of working with elected and appointed officials and understanding their particular insights, concerns and needs to design strategies to assist them in their own development of informed and inclusive decision-making processes. She looks to find collaboration, consensus and respectful understanding among the groups she leads and facilitates. Katherine is a member of the Civic Consulting Collaborative, joining other practitioners and experts to bring their experience, insight and understanding to offer institutions leadership and tools as they work to strengthen their organizations.
Sharon Block is a Professor of Practice and Executive Director of the Center for Labor and a Just Economy at Harvard Law School. Prior to returning to Harvard, she led the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in President Joe Biden’s White House. She also served as a senior advisor to the Biden-Harris Transition team, providing advice on policy, OMB and Labor Agency Review teams on labor, worker empowerment and regulatory policy and participating in briefing and hearing preparation for nominees.
Sharon has held key labor policy positions across the legislative and executive branches of the federal government. In the Obama Administration, she was the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Labor and Senior Counselor to the Secretary of Labor Tom Perez. In 2012, President Obama appointed her to serve as a member of the National Labor Relations Board. While serving in the Obama White House as Senior Public Engagement Advisor for Labor and Working Families, she led the historic White House Summit on Worker Voice.
Alex Hertel-Fernandez studies the political economy of the United States, with an emphasis on the politics of policy design and labor and worker power. He previously served in the Biden-Harris Administration in the Department of Labor and the Office of Management and Budget, and is an Associate Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. Together with Suresh Naidu, Adam Reich, and Patrick Youngblood, he co-directs the Columbia Labor Lab, an academic center for implementing rigorous, data-driven evaluations in partnership with worker organizations. Along with Jacob Hacker, Paul Pierson, and Kathleen Thelen, he co-leads the Consortium on American Political Economy.
He has published three books—The American Political Economy (Cambridge University Press, 2021), State Capture (Oxford University Press, 2019), and Politics at Work (Oxford University Press, 2018). Politics at Work received the 2019 Robert A. Dahl Award, for scholarship of the highest quality on the subject of democracy by an untenured scholar, and the 2019 Gladys M. Kammerer Award, for best book on the subject of U.S. national policy, both from the American Political Science Association.Sharon has held key labor policy positions across the legislative and executive branches of the federal government. In the Obama Administration, she was the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Labor and Senior Counselor to the Secretary of Labor Tom Perez. In 2012, President Obama appointed her to serve as a member of the National Labor Relations Board. While serving in the Obama White House as Senior Public Engagement Advisor for Labor and Working Families, she led the historic White House Summit on Worker Voice.
Jocelyn Frye is President of the National Partnership for Women & Families—a policymaking and legal advocacy organization which works to advance health care, civil rights, economic justice, and racial equity in America. She is the first Black woman to head the National Partnership, which was founded in 1971.
Prior to her current role, Jocelyn helped spearhead the Women’s Initiative at the Center for American Progress, one of the country’s leading progressive think tanks. Her work there spanned a wide range of issues, including narrowing the gender pay gap, improving women’s employment opportunities and economic stability, combating gender-based discrimination and gender-based violence, and addressing the Black maternal health crisis.
Before CAP, Jocelyn served in the White House during the administration of Barack Obama. She oversaw the broad issue portfolio of Michelle Obama, including the First Lady’s two signature initiatives—tackling childhood obesity and supporting military families. She also helped establish the first White House mentoring program for local high school students.
Janelle Jones is currently the Vice President of Policy and Advocacy at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Previously, she was the Chief Economist and Policy Director at the Service Employees International Union. Prior to SEIU, she served as Chief Economist for the US Department of Labor. As a principal advisor to the Secretary of Labor she worked on a number of government wide policies and plans with respect to labor, social, and the economy.
Before joining the Department of Labor, she was the Managing Director for Policy and Research at Groundwork Collaborative, an economic policy nonprofit that works to advance an economic vision that delivers meaningful opportunity and prosperity for all. Prior to that, she worked at the Economic Policy Institute and Center for Economic and Policy Research working on a variety of labor market topics including unemployment, inequality, unions and job quality. Her research has been cited in The New Yorker, The Economist, The Washington Post, The Review of Black Political Economy, and other publications. Janelle served as an AmeriCrosp*VISTA volunteer in California and a Peace Corps Volunteer in Peru.
Tyra Mariani is the Founder and Principal at UP Advisors, LLC following her tenure as President of the Schultz Family Foundation and head of philanthropy at the Emes Project LLC. Previously, Tyra served as President & COO of New America where she partnered with the Board and CEO to transform the organization into a think tank that is committed to exploring new and more effective ways of solving public problems.
In the Obama Administration, Tyra was appointed Chief of Staff to the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education and Deputy Chief of Staff to the U.S. Secretary of Education, where she helped shape policies and programs impacting education from early learning through college and career. She also led complex interagency and cross-departmental teams that took several Administration priorities from vision to strategy and implementation including the President’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative and RESPECT, an effort to elevate and transform the teaching profession. Tyra was recognized as a key problem-solving partner to the Department’s senior leadership, helping them to overcome bureaucracy and accelerate their work and the agency’s priorities.
Cindy Mann is a Partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, bringing more than 30 years of experience in federal and state health policy, and working with clients to develop and implement strategies around federal and state health reform, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and delivery and payment system transformation.
Before joining Manatt, Cindy was deputy administrator at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and director of the Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services where she led the administration of Medicaid, CHIP and the Basic Health Program for more than five years during the 3 implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Cindy set and oversaw the implementation of federal policy relating to all aspects of the Medicaid program including delivery and payments, eligibility, benefits, waiver policy and long term services and supports. Throughout her time at CMS, she was deeply involved in supporting state program implementation and innovation, and coordinating policy and program operations with the Marketplace.
Previously, Cindy was a research professor at the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute where she founded and led the Center for Children and Families.
Cecilia Muñoz is a national leader in public policy and public interest technology with nearly three decades of experience in the non-profit sector and 8 years of service on President Obama’s senior team, first as Director of Intergovernmental Affairs followed by five years as Director of the Domestic Policy Council. She currently advises a series of nonprofits, including Welcome.US and the New Practice Lab.
Before working in government, she spent 20 years at the National Council of La Raza (now UNIDOS US), the nation’s largest Hispanic policy and advocacy organization. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2000 for her work on immigration and civil rights, and, in 2020, she published the award-winning More Than Ready: Be Strong and Be You...and Other Lessons for Women of Color on the Rise, which shares insights from her career as well as the careers of other notable women of color.
Shayna Strom is the CEO of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. She has decades of experience bridging nonprofits, government, philanthropy, and academia, and a deep commitment to fostering economic growth by addressing inequality.
Previously, Shayna served as the chief deputy national political director at the American Civil Liberties Union, where she helped launch a 75-person department focused on policy, issue campaigns, and grassroots organizing. Shayna also has had a significant government career, including serving on the Biden-Harris transition team. During the Obama administration, she spent 4 years in the White House, working as an adviser to the head of the Office of Management and Budget and as the chief of staff and senior counselor at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, or OIRA, where she negotiated the policy and politics of many of President Barack Obama’s high-profile regulations. She also previously served as counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee for Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), where she worked on antitrust issues, among other topics.
Additionally, Shayna has taught at Johns Hopkins University, Sarah Lawrence College, and the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware.
David Weil is Professor of Social Policy and Economics at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. He served as the Dean of the Heller School from 2017-2022. He is also a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance at the Harvard Kennedy School. Weil was appointed by President Barack Obama to be the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor and was the first Senate confirmed head of that agency in a decade. He led the Wage and Hour Division from 2014 to January 2017. Prior to that, he was the Peter and Deborah Wexler Professor of Management at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.
His area of expertise is employment and labor market policy; regulation; transparency policy; and the impacts of industry restructuring on employment and work outcomes and business performance. Professor Weil has written five books including the widely cited The Fissured Workplace (Harvard University Press) and published over 120 articles. He is widely sought in the US and abroad as an advisor on public policy questions.
Heidi Shierholz is the president of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining EPI, she was the Chief Economist at the U.S. Department of Labor during the Obama administration. Throughout her career, Shierholz has provided policymakers and economic commentators with research and analysis on labor market dynamics, labor and employment policy, and the effects of economic policies on low- and middle-income families. She is regularly called upon to testify in congress and her research and commentary on labor and employment policy, inequality, racial and gender disparities in the labor market, worker bargaining power, and other topics have been cited in top broadcast, radio, print, and online news outlets. After receiving her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan, she was an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Toronto in Toronto, Ontario. She has an M.S. in statistics from Iowa State University, and a B.A. in mathematics from Grinnell College in Iowa.