The Vote.org Team
CEO
Andrea Hailey
Andrea is the CEO of Vote.org, the nation’s largest nonpartisan digital voter engagement organization. Andrea led Vote.org to record-breaking growth during the 2020 General Election and the Georgia runoff elections, helping more than 3.7 million people register to vote and more than 3.3 million request mail-in ballots, and leading a 50-state get-out-the-vote operation which made over half a billion voter contacts across the country. Andrea and Vote.org’s work in 2020 has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, and Bloomberg.
With nearly two decades of experience in voter engagement operations and campaigns, Andrea is a recognized expert on civic engagement, and a staunch defender and promoter of democracy. Prior to joining Vote.org, she served as the founder of Civic Engagement Fund, an incubator for grassroots nonprofit organizations focused on voter empowerment and engagement. She has advised and supported the efforts of presidential and congressional candidates, ballot initiatives, and historic landmarks, including the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on the National Mall, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Andrea launched her career on Capitol Hill in the office of Representative Patrick Kennedy.
In addition to leading Vote.org, Andrea sits on the boards of NARAL and Bend The Arc, serves on the Leadership Council of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, and is a member of the Society of Fellows for the Aspen Institute.
Board members
Christy Remey Chin, Treasurer
Christy, Venture Partner at Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, was instrumental in finding, funding and supporting DRK entrepreneurs, as well as cultivating and engaging DRK’s network of donor partners. She serves on two DRK grantee boards, Food Forward and Vote.org.
Christy has devoted her career to advancing social entrepreneurship and championing high-impact philanthropy. She is currently exploring opportunities to combat bias and racism in philanthropy, social enterprise and VC funding.
Christy also chairs the board of Benetech and serves on the following boards: Save The Waves, SV2, World Affairs, and Venture Forward which is a nonprofit subsidiary of the National Venture Capital Association. She also advises Accountability Counsel, Adventure Scientists, New Story Charity and CalMatters.
She previously worked at the Harvard Business School, the Skoll Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s Philanthropy Workshop. Christy received her M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School and holds a B.A. in History from Colgate University.
Julia Rhodes Davis, Chair
Julia Rhodes Davis is an entrepreneur and social justice leader working at the intersection of technology and society with a focus on equipping vulnerable communities to assert sovereignty over how technology influences their lives. She is a seasoned executive comfortable blending her deep expertise in technology and people-centered program design to advance social and economic equity. Most recently, at the Partnership in AI, Julia served as inaugural Director of Partnerships, building a multistakeholder community from the ground-up. In this position, Julia built the community infrastructure and set the strategy to engage and add value for the 100+ member organizations. Members range from technology companies like Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Deepmind, IBM and Microsoft, to civil society organizations like Human Rights Watch, the ACLU, PolicyLink, and United for respect. Julia led projects on highly complex and contentious technologies like facial recognition; launched the AI and Media Steering Committee, and established the organization’s growing portfolio of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion projects building representation and equity as a central focus for the organization. Prior to PAI, Julia served as Managing Director of DataKind, where she oversaw organizational growth and built an ecosystem of corporations (including Microsoft, Google, and Mastercard); foundations (including the Gates Foundation and the Omidyar Network); and 18,000 technologists and social sector experts to accelerate solutions to challenges such as climate and energy, global health, education, and democratic freedom. A New York City native who now calls Oakland, California her home, Julia holds a BA with honors from Columbia University, and co-owns Oakland Yard, a wine shop and tasting bar that builds your palate while building community.
Maisha Leek, Director
Maisha’s career spans leadership roles in fundraising, politics, science/tech policy, technology startups, and venture capital. At Human Ventures — an early-stage venture studio in NYC that backs and builds consumer technology companies – she is a Partner. In this role, she manages the success of 16 portfolios companies. Maisha also sources potential founders for companies built with Enterprise partners and HV’s “Entrepreneur In Residence” program. She is particularly interested in working with experienced founders with backgrounds that are frequently underestimated by the VC community (people of color, LGBTQIA, veterans, etc.) and collaborating with investors that understand the opportunity this network presents.
She is a former chief of staff of the U. S. Congress where she oversaw a $54b portfolio that included the federal government’s investments in science and technology. During both Bush and Obama Administrations, she served as Special Assistant to there Vice Chair of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Prior to Human Ventures, Maisha was an operations executive at a high-growth startup backed by Andreesen Horowitz, Alphabet, Floodgate, and Main Street Advisors. She is a trustee of her alma mater, Trinity College (D.C.) and a board member of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and Service Year Alliance.
Rupa Balasubramanian, Director
Rupa has over fifteen years of experience managing private family foundations in Los Angeles–facilitating the investment of millions of dollars to support organizations focused on education, women’s health, the environment, civic engagement, and civil rights at the local, state, and national levels. She began her philanthropic career at Margery Tabankin & Associates, a philanthropic and political consulting firm. There, Rupa worked with Barbra Streisand and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center to create the Women’s Heart Alliance, a national non-profit organization with a bold campaign to increase awareness of women’s heart disease and advocate for more funding on gender-specific research . In the summer of 2013, Rupa helped launch Fundamental. Rupa currently serves on the advisory board of the Women’s Heart Alliance in addition to serving on the board of directors for Vote.org, Planned Parenthood Los Angeles and Demos, a public policy organization working to achieve social, economic, and political equity.
Rupa previously worked in crisis management at Hill & Knowlton, Inc., a leading international communications consulting firm. During the Clinton Administration, Rupa worked in the Press Secretary’s office at the White House. She graduated with honors from the University of California, Santa Barbara and earned her Masters degree in Public Administration with summa cum laude honors at the University of Southern California’s School of Policy, Planning and Development.
Swati Mylavarapu, Director
Swati is a founder of Incite Labs, a foundation that supports non profits that are sparking social and environmental change. She is also a Partner at Incite Ventures. She is passionate about enabling great ideas and teams that are solving important, underinvested-in challenges. Swati was previously a Partner on the venture capital team at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, where she focused on consumer digital and hardware investments. Before KPCB, Swati built the international business and product marketing efforts at Square, a financial services company that levels the playing field for small business. Swati also serves on the non-profit boards of B Lab and the Boston Review. Swati graduated from Harvard with an A.B. in Development Studies, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and a Truman Scholar. She also holds an M.Phil. in Economic History from the University of Oxford, where she was a Rhodes Scholar.