President Obama’s Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, Aditi Hardikar, who served as his liaison to LGBT communities, quit Jan. 12, to join Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign in a top position.
The White House lauded Hardikar’s work as the primary liaison to the gay, bisexual and transgender community for more than a year. Hardikar plans to join former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign as finance director for coalitions, the Washington Post reported quoting Hardikar.
Hardikar, the first lesbian woman of color to serve as LGBT and Asian American communities liaison, took over from another Indian-American Gautam Raghavan, who quit to join The Gill Foundation, a non-profit advocacy group on LGBT community issues. She is credited with implementing some important if controversial steps taken by the Obama administration such as the opening of the first all-gender restrooms at the White House and the decision to light up the White House in rainbow colors when the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationally, the Post reported.
“Aditi’s fingerprints are all over many of this administration’s most important steps forward,” Valerie Jarrett, one of President Obama’s closest advisors and head of the Office of Public Engagement, is quoted saying in a statement, adding that Hardikar’s work “showed that change is possible when you are dedicated to something larger than yourself.”
Hardikar, who became associate director of the OPE in November 2014, also served as a liaison to Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities where she describes her work as “engaging on policy issues, community organizing, and communications.”
An early Obama supporter, the University of Michigan graduate in economics and political science, was part of the Obama for America campaign, served on the Democratic National Committee, and was on the Obama Presidential Inaugural Committee.
At the DNC, Hardikar was director of the LGBT Leadership Council from Feb. 2013 to Nov. 2014, overseeing the fundraising efforts by and with the LGBT and related communities. She was the LGBT finance director on President Obama’s inaugural committee, where she says she raised $1.3 million for the committee from major-dollar contributors with the LGBT and allied communities, according to her profile on LinkedIn.
In the Obama for America campaign, Hardikar was deputy director of the LGBT Leadership Council and LGBT Vote at its Chicago, Illinois office. Serving in that capacity for more than a year, Hardikar says she executed 17 major-dollar presidential fundraisers, managed relationships among a team of 10 national co-chairs, and raised more than $25.8 million for the 2011-2012 cycle, exceeding the goal of $12 million for the cycle.
As deputy director of LGBT Vote, she co-created the National LGBT Vote Strategy, bringing together several departments to coordinate and successfully recruit more than 300,000 new LGBT and allied voters to register, vote, and volunteer.
She worked for two years from September 2009 – September 2011 at MTV Networks writing blog posts about LGBT women’s visibility in the media, interviewing leaders, and reviewing shows, movies and books. She was a summer intern at the White House Office of Public Engagement in 2010.
Born in Virginia, Hardikar’s parents hail from Mumbai.
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