Lu, Christopher, 1966-

Christopher P. Lu (simplified Chinese: 卢沛宁; traditional Chinese: 盧沛寧; pinyin: Lú Pèiníng; born June 12, 1966) is a former United States Deputy Secretary of Labor. He also served as Assistant to the President and White House Cabinet Secretary for United States President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as well as the co-chair of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Lu graduated from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and from Harvard Law School, where he was a classmate of Obama's.

After serving briefly as an advisor on Senator John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign, Lu began working for Barack Obama in 2005 in his U.S. Senate office, where Lu served as legislative director and acting chief of staff. Following Obama's successful 2008 campaign for presidency, Lu was appointed executive director of the Obama-Biden Transition Project. When Obama appointed Lu as Cabinet Secretary, The New York Times described him as "one of the highest-ranking Asian Americans in the Obama administration".

After graduating cum laude from Harvard in 1991, Lu started his career as a law clerk to Judge Robert Cowen in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. In 1992, he began working as a litigation attorney at the Washington, D.C. office of Sidley Austin, a large Chicago-based law firm. Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, also worked at Sidley Austin, in the firm's Chicago office.

In 1997, Lu left Sidley Austin and took his first job in the political arena as deputy chief counsel for Representative Henry Waxman and the Democratic staff of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee of the House of Representatives. Phil Schiliro, Waxman's chief of staff, had a large part in the decision to hire Lu; the two would work together again later on the Obama administration; Lu later said he considers Schiliro and Pete Rouse, another future White House staffer, among his most influential mentors. During his tenure with the Government Reform Committee, Lu conducted several high-profile investigations, including investigations into campaign fundraising during the 1996 presidential election, the collapse of Enron, and substandard nursing home conditions. Lu also served as special adviser for communications to Senator John Kerry during the 2004 presidential election. One of his primary duties there was coordinating the activities of families of September 11 attack victims supporting the Kerry campaign.