Buttigieg hires ex-DNC CEO as he continues hiring spree

[SouthernProgressive]

1. Excellent Hire

Jess O’Connell is a partner at NEWCO Strategies. For nearly twenty years, Jess O’Connell has worked to advance progressive policies and to elect Democrats all over the country. She’s held senior positions with Hillary Clinton, EMILY’s List, Center the American Progress, the US Global Leadership Coalition, ONE, and the Children’s Defense Fund. Most recently, as founder and CEO of JOC Strategy Group, Jess worked with progressive leaders and organizations on a wide range of leadership and strategic advising.

In 2017, Jess served as the CEO at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) where she oversaw an historic reorganization and created a new mission and purpose for an institution that traditionally focused on one election every four years. She introduced a back to basics strategy – she refocused the party on national organizing by making an unprecedented investment in state parties and instituting an innovative $10 million competitive grant program. During her tenure the team doubled, the DNC raised $67 million and Democrats won elections across the country, including 36 state legislative flips from red-to-blue and record-breaking statewide victories in New Jersey, Virginia and Alabama. In 2018, she crafted and launched the national I WILL VOTE campaign to help Democrats win with the largest midterm margin since Watergate. Jess served as spokeswoman for the DNC with CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR and more.

Jess joined the DNC from EMILY’s List, the largest political organization and resource for women in the United States, where she was the Executive Director. She helped lead EMILY’s List to historic increases in membership and fundraising from 3M members to over 5M and $90M raised in 2016. She oversaw the largest independent expenditure program in the organization’s history at that time.

Jess helped elect the most diverse Congress in history at that time - quadrupling the number of women of color elected to the United States Senate and over half of the new Democratic women elected to the House were women of color. At the state & local level, she built programs to elect 269 women. She traveled to nearly 20 states speaking on behalf of candidates. During this time, with the support of EMILY’s List, Hillary Clinton made history as the first woman nominated for President from either party. In response to the 2016 election, Jess helped launch Run to Win, a national campaign that recruited over 40,000 women to run for office.

New Cost Strategies