Reshma Saujani

Reshma Saujani at an anti-PIPA rally

Reshma Saujani is an Indian-American lawyer and politician. She is the founder of the tech organization Girls Who Code. She was previously the Deputy Public Advocate at the Office of the New York City Public Advocate.^[1] Saujani lost the 2010 Democratic primary (19%-81%) for the U.S. House of Representatives in New York's 14th congressional district against incumbent Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney.^[2] Saujani was the first Indian-American woman (and the first South Asian American woman) to run for Congress.^[3] She ran as a Democratic candidate for New York City Public Advocate in 2013, coming third in the primary.^[4][5]

Early life

Saujani was born in Illinois.^[6] She is of Gujarati descent.^[7] Saujani's parents lived in Uganda, prior to being expelled along with other persons of Indian descent in the early 1970s by Idi Amin.^[2][8] They settled in Chicago.^[9]

Saujani attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she graduated in 1997 with majors in Political Science and Speech Communication. She attended the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where she received a Master of Public Policy in 1999, and Yale Law School, where she received her Juris Doctor in 2002.^[9]

Legal and business career

Saujani worked at the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, where she defended securities fraud cases,^[10] and on a pro bono basis handled asylum cases.^[11] In 2005, she joined the investment firm Carret Asset Management.^[11] After Saujani left Carret, its principal owner, financier Hassan Nemazee, was convicted on felony charges relating to bank fraud carried out over the course of several years at Carret, including during Saujani's time at Carret; she later told the news media that she had had no knowledge of any illicit conduct at Carret.^[11][12] Subsequently, she joined Blue Wave Partners Management, a subsidiary of the Carlyle Group, the global alternative asset management firm specializing in private equity. She was an associate general counsel at Blue Wave, an equity multi-strategy hedge fund; it was closed in the aftermath of the 2008 market collapse.^[10] Immediately prior to running for Congress, Saujani was a deputy general counsel at Fortress Investment Group.^[13] In 2012, Saujani founded Girls Who Code, a nonprofit organization which works to close the gender gap in technology.^[14]

Politics

Saujani founded "South Asians for Kerry" during the 2004 presidential election.

Saujani served on the National Finance Board for Hillary Clinton during Clinton's campaign for president in 2008. Following the primaries, she was named Vice-Chair of the New York delegation at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Saujani has also contributed to the Huffington Post and WNYC.^[15]

She has been featured on NY1, MSNBC, FOX, and CNBC.

In September 2011, she was named one of City Hall's "40 under 40" for being a young influential member of New York City politics.^[16]

2010 House election

Saujani challenged incumbent Democratic Representative Carolyn Maloney in the 2010 House elections. Saujani's previous work for and link to Wall Street firms was seen as a liability to her credibility and acceptance by Democratic primary voters.^[17] Saujani won the support of Jack Dorsey, co-founder and chairman of Twitter;^[18] Randi Zuckerberg, director of market development for Facebook and sister of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg;^[19] Alexis Maybank, co-founder of Gilt Groupe;^[20] and Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook.^[21] Saujani outraised Maloney by almost a 2-to-1 margin in the last quarter of 2009,^[22] when Maloney had ceased fundraising following the death of her husband, Clifton Maloney, who in September had died unexpectedly on a mountain-climbing expedition in the Himalayas.^[23] Saujani's candidacy received the backing of prominent Upper East Side political fundraisers, including Cathy Lasry, Maureen White, and White's husband, financier Steven Rattner.

A poll commissioned in the spring of 2010 by the Maloney campaign showed Saujani trailing Maloney by more than 68 points. The same poll found Maloney to hold a favorable rating of 86%.^[24] Saujani's campaign mailed a flyer to voters implicating Maloney as one of eight House members investigated for taking donations from special interests,^[25] which was not the case. Maloney won the primary by receiving 81% of the vote to Saujani's 19%, winning the Manhattan, Queens, and Roosevelt Island portions of the district across the board by decisive margins. Saujani received 6,231 votes,^[26] despite her campaign's expenditure of $1.3 million,^[27] spending more than $213 for every vote she received.

Saujani's campaign was the first political campaign to use technology tools such as Square,^[28] NationBuilder, and Fast Society.

2013 NYPA election

Saujani ran for the role of New York Public Advocate in 2013, coming third in the Democratic primary.^[29]

In January 2013, Saujani's Wikipedia page was heavily edited to remove traces of Saujani working for Wall Street firms such as hedge funds. Her campaign admitted to this,^[30] arguing they did it because they disagreed with the stated facts.^[31]

Books

Saujani is the author of Women Who Don't Wait in Line: Break the Mold, Lead the Way, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2013.

Personal life

Saujani is married to entrepreneur Nihal Mehta, who is a co-founder of ad tech startup LocalResponse. Saujani is a practicing Hindu.^[32]

See also

• Indians in the New York City metropolitan region

References

External links

• Reshma Saujani on Twitter
• Girls Who Code