Seema Nanda is General Counsel of Democracy Fund, where she provides legal and strategic counsel. She advises the organization’s leadership and board on governance, risk, strategy, and the legal and regulatory landscape affecting philanthropy.
Seema brings more than two decades of experience working at the intersection of law, government, civil rights, worker rights, and advocacy. She most recently served as solicitor of labor at the U.S. Department of Labor, where she was the department’s chief legal officer and led an office of more than 500 attorneys. She previously served as chief executive officer of the Democratic National Committee and as executive vice president and chief operating officer of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
Earlier in her career, she served in legal, policy, and leadership roles at the U.S. Department of Labor, U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, and the National Labor Relations Board, and practiced labor and employment law in the private sector. Seema has also served as a fellow at Harvard Law School’s Center for Labor and a Just Economy, and Cornell Law School’s Migration and Human Rights Program. She is deeply committed to strengthening democratic institutions and ensuring that workers and communities have a meaningful voice in the decisions that shape their lives.
Seema graduated magna cum laude from Brown University and summa cum laude from Boston College Law School.