Munoz, Cecilia, 1962-

<p> Cecilia Muñoz is Vice President for Public Interest Technology and Local Initiatives at New America. Before joining New America in 2017, she served on President Obama’s senior staff, first as Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for three years, followed by five years as Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. She served for 20 years at the National Council of La Raza (now UNIDOS US), the nation’s largest Hispanic policy and advocacy organization, where she was Senior Vice President for the Office of Research, Advocacy and Legislation. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2000 for her work on immigration and civil rights, and serves on the Boards of the Open Society and Kresge Foundations, as well as the nonprofit United to Protect Democracy. In 2018, she joined Results for America as a Senior Fellow to help policymakers at all levels of government use data and evidence to deliver better outcomes for the people they serve. </p>

<p> Muñoz, a Detroit native and the daughter of immigrants from Bolivia, is also a wife and mother of two grown daughters. She lives with her husband in Maryland. </p>

<p> Cecilia Muñoz (born July 27, 1962) is an American political advisor who served as Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under President Obama, a position she held for five years. Prior to that, she served as the White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for three years. </p>

<p> Before working for the White House, she was Senior Vice President for the Office of Research, Advocacy and Legislation at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the largest Latino advocacy organization in the United States. At NCLR, she supervised all legislative and advocacy activities conducted by NCLR policy staff. She was also the Chair of the Board of the Center for Community Change and served on the U.S. Programs Board of the Open Society Institute and on the boards of directors of the Atlantic Philanthropies and the National Immigration Forum. In 2000, she was named a MacArthur Fellow for her work on civil rights and immigration. </p>

<p> She was featured in several episodes of the documentary series How Democracy Works Now: Twelve Stories, and she contributed a chapter to West Wingers: Stories from the Dream Chasers, Change Makers, and Hope Creators Inside the Obama White House discussing her experiences in the Obama White House. </p>

Cecilia Muñoz is Vice President for Public Interest Technology and Local Initiatives at New America. Prior to joining New America in 2017, she served for eight years on President Obama’s senior staff, first as Director of Intergovernmental Affairs followed by five years as Director of the Domestic Policy Council. Before working in government, she was Senior Vice President at the National Council of La Raza (now UNIDOS US), the nation’s largest Hispanic policy and advocacy organization, where she served for 20 years. Muñoz is also a Senior Fellow at Results for America, a nonprofit that advances the use of data and evidence in policy making. She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2000 for her work on immigration and civil rights, and serves on the Boards of the Open Society, MacArthur and Kresge Foundations, as well as the nonprofit Protect Democracy Project. She is the author of More than Ready: Be Strong and Be you....and other lessons for women of color on the rise, to be published in April 2020.

<p> Cecilia Muñoz is the Assistant to the President and Director of the Domestic Policy Council, which coordinates the domestic policy-making process in the White House. </p>

<p> Prior to this role, she served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Intergovernmental Affairs where she oversaw the Obama Administration’s relationships with state and local governments. </p>

<p> Before joining the Obama Administration, Cecilia served as Senior Vice President for the Office of Research, Advocacy, and Legislation at the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the nation’s largest Latino civil rights organization. She supervised NCLR’s policy staff covering a variety of issues of importance to Latinos, including civil rights, employment, poverty, farmworker issues, education, health, housing, and immigration. Her particular area of expertise is immigration policy, which she covered at NCLR for twenty years. </p>

<p> Ms. Muñoz has testified numerous times before Congress and appears regularly in the Spanish- and English-language media. Her media credits include the Today Show, Good Morning America, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Dateline NBC, O’Reilly Factor, CNN’s Situation Room, and National Public Radio. </p>

<p> Ms. Muñoz is the former Chair of the Board of Center for Community Change, and served on the U.S. Programs Board of the Open Society Institute and the Board of Directors of the Atlantic Philanthropies and the National Immigration Forum. </p>

<p> Ms. Muñoz is the daughter of immigrants from Bolivia and was born in Detroit, Michigan. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and her master’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley. In June 2000, she was awarded a MacArthur Foundation fellowship in recognition of her work on immigration and civil rights. In 2007, she served as the Towsley Foundation Policymaker in Residence at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. She has received numerous other awards and recognitions from various sources, including the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, and a variety of local non-profit organizations. </p>

<p> Cecilia Muñoz served as assistant to the president and director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House for five years; she joined President Obama’s White House staff in January 2009 as President Obama’s director of intergovernmental affairs, and became the Domestic Policy Council’s director in January 2012. </p>

<p> Prior to her work in government, she served for 20 years at the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest Hispanic policy and advocacy organization, where she was senior vice president for the Office of Research, Advocacy, and Legislation, overseeing policy analysis and advocacy work on a range of issues including economic mobility, housing, employment, civil rights, health, and farmworker issues. Her main area of expertise is immigration policy. </p>

<p> She received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2000 for her work on immigration and civil rights, and has served on the boards of the National Immigration Forum, the Open Society Foundations, and the Atlantic Philanthropies. </p>