Gautam Raghavan

Gautam Raghavan is the editor of West Wingers: Stories from the Dream Chasers, Change Makers, and Hope Creators Inside the Obama White House, to be released by Penguin Books on September 25, 2018. Currently, he serves as an advisor to progressive organizations focused on securing political power and social change including the Biden Foundation and the Indian American Impact Fund.

From 2014 to 2017, Raghavan served as Vice President of Policy for the Gill Foundation, where he managed multi-million dollar investments to secure federal and state-level policies that ensure a level playing field for all lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) Americans. From 2011 to 2014, Raghavan served as President Barack Obama’s liaison to the LGBTQ community as well as the Asian American & Pacific Islander community, and from 2009 to 2011, as White House Liaison for the U.S. Department of Defense and as Outreach Lead for the Pentagon’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Working Group.

Prior to joining the Obama Administration, Raghavan worked to strengthen the progressive movement and expand the Democratic Party as director of the 2008 Obama campaign’s Asian American Finance Committee and as Midwest Finance Director for the Democratic National Committee under Chairman Howard Dean. A first-generation immigrant, Raghavan was born in India, raised in Seattle, and graduated from Stanford University.