ADVISORS

David Axelrod - Chief Strategist

Axelrod was a young talented political reporter for the Chicago Tribune until he began working on the campaign of former Illinois Senator Paul Simon. As a political consultant and campaign strategist, he has served Representative Rahm Emanuel, Senator Herb Kohl, Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley as well as Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Chris Dodd and John Edwards.  He also ran Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign.  He began his political consulting firm as Axelrod & Associates in 1985; it has been expanding and is called AKP&D Message and Media.

Pete Rouse - Chief of Staff

Pete Rouse has been working on Capitol Hill for over 30 years and has often been called the 101st Senator due to his "innate knowledge of the workings of Washington," according to the Washington Post. After working as Chief of Staff for Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle, Rouse planned to retire when Daschle was not re-elected in 2004. However, after much aggressive recruiting, he was persuaded to come on as Chief of Staff for newly elected Senator Obama. Thanks to his experience on the Hill, Rouse expertly guided Obama through his first years in Washington, shaping a bi-partisan record for Obama which would help pave the way for a presidential bid. During the campaign, Rouse served as a senior advisor to Mr. Obama and towards the end took on the role of liason between the campaign and the transition. After Obama won the Presidential election, Rouse was officially appointed co-chairman of the Obama-Biden Transition Project. He will also serve in the White House administration as a senior advisor to President Obama.

David Plouffe - Campaign Manager

He is a partner with David Axelrod in AKP&D Message and Media.  He began working in politics on Senator Tom Harkin’s reelection campaign in 1990 and also served as a state field director for Harkin’s failed presidential bid.  He has been a campaign director for Delaware Attorney General Charles Oberly’s unsuccessful Senate race, Bob Torricelli’s successful New Jersey Senate race and for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.  He served as deputy chief of staff for Richard Gephardt as a executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Robert Gibbs - Communications Director

Robert Gibbs, who has shared Obama’s political journey closely since he was running for the U.S. Senate in 2004, was named the President-elect’s White House press secretary on November 22. Mr. Gibbs served as communications director for both Senator Obama and for Obama’s presidential campaign and also previously worked on several other campaigns, including that of Senator Ernest F. Hollings of South Carolina and his position as a spokesman during the early stages of Senator John Kerry’s presidential race.

W. Anthony Lake - Foreign Policy Advisor

Lake was a Foreign Service Officer with the State Department from 1962 to 1970.  Since then, he has advised many presidents and many presidential candidates on foreign policy and national security issues.  He was the Director of Policy Planning under Jimmy Carter and National Security Advisor under Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997, after which he was a White House Special Envoy until 2000.  He has been a professor at various universities since 1981, most recently as Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown.

Susan Rice - Foreign Policy Advisor

Rice attended Stanford University and was a Rhodes Scholar.  She was a management consultant with McKinsey and Company from 1191 to 1993 and then served a variety of posts under President Bill Clinton – the Director for International Organizations and Peacekeeping on the National Security Council, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs on the National Security Council and Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Affairs.  She was also the senior advisor for National Security Affairs for Senator Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004.  She is currently on leave as a fellow at Brookings Institute.

Dennis Ross - Middle East Advisor

Ross was a career Foreign Service Officer who spent 12 years under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton serving as chief negotiator in the Middle East peace process.  He wrote a book, The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace, which describes his time spent constructing agreements and treaties between Israel and the Palestinians, Jordan and Syria.  He is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Paul Volcker - Economic Advisor

On January 31, 2008, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker emphasized his support of Obama by stating: "It is only Barack Obama, in his person, in his ideas, in his ability to understand and to articulate both our needs and our hopes that provide the potential for strong and fresh leadership. That leadership must begin here in America but it can also restore needed confidence in our vision, our strength, and our purposes right around the world." In the third presidential debate on October 15, Barack Obama explicitly referred to Volcker as his economic adviser: "On economic policy, I associate with Warren Buffett and former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker. […] Those are the people, Democrats and Republicans, who have shaped my ideas and who will be surrounding me in the White House." Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from 1979 to 1987, Volcker served, over the course of his career, in the Federal Government for almost 30 years and worked under five presidents—John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan.

Being praised by President-elect Barack Obama as "one of the world's foremost economic policy experts," Mr. Volcker has been briefly considered for Treasury Secretary but will now lead the new White House Economic Recovery Advisory Board. This new panel, whose members will include leading figures from a variety of business sectors, is supposed to provide "fresh perspective" to the new administration, "with an infusion of ideas from across the country and from all sectors of our economy," as the President-elect pointed out in his announcement on November 26. Austan Goolsbee, a longstanding policy adviser of Mr. Obama, was appointed as the board's staff director, a position in which he will serve along with his duties as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Robert Rubin - Economic Advisor

Robert Rubin is a former US Treasury Secretary and currently an economic advisor to Barack Obama. He was previously instrumental in forming President Bill Clinton's economic policies; however, he has explicitly stated recently that he would not return to Washington or government, after asked whether he would resume the role of Treasury Secretary if requested by Obama.

Robert Reich - Economic Advisor

In his blog, where he announced his endorsement for Obama in April 2008, Reich wrote "my conscience won't let me be silent any longer," emphasizing that he believed Obama offered more “sensible policy proposals” than his democratic competitor Hillary Clinton and “the best chance of creating a new politics in which citizens become active participants.” Robert Reich, a former labor secretary during President Bill Clinton's administration, got to know the Clintons in their law school days at Yale. Being friends with the couple for four decades, Reich, who ran for governor in Massachusetts and currently is a professor UC Berkley, claimed that his decision to endorse Obama was not an easy one. Reich now acts as an informal economic adviser to Obama.

Neera Tanden - Domestic Advisor

Formerly Hillary Clinton's senior policy advisor, on June 27th, Neera Tanden was hired as Obama's director of domestic policy. On the Clinton campaign, Tanden was the key architect of Clinton's health care plan, which, with its proposal of universal coverage through mandates, was one of the key differences between the two Democratic candidates on domestic policy. Tanden had been a long-time loyalist to the Clinton campaign, working on the Clinton-Gore campaign then in the first Clinton administration, and then as campaign manager and policy director for Clinton's first Senatorial campaign and subsequently as legislative director for Hilary Clinton during her first year as US Senator. Tanden switched over to Obama's campaign after receiving approval from Hillary Clinton.

FINANCIAL FRIENDS

Penny Pritzker

An heir to the Hyatt hotel chain, Chicago-based billionaire business mogul Pritzker was named Obama's national finance chair on January 31, 2007. She had previously served on the finance committee for Obama's 2004 Senate campaign. Pritzker was named number 89 on the "most powerful women in America" list in 2005 by Forbes magazine. During the campaign, Pritzker organized a $9 million Hollywood fundraiser and along with Phil Murphy, she had organized a Call-a-thon which had raised over $2 million by the end of September 2008. Being a chief architect of the Obama campaign's record-breaking fund-raising, Ms. Pritzker was reported to be in the final stages of vetting to become Commerce Secretary in the new administration. However, Ms. Pritzker withdrew from consideration on November 20, fearing that some of her business dealings might come under sharp scrutiny. "I think I can best serve our nation in my current capacity: building businesses, creating jobs and working to strengthen our economy," Ms. Pritzker was quoted in a Washington Post piece. "It has been my great privilege to serve in the Obama campaign. I look forward to helping our new president in every way possible and am excited about the future under his leadership."

Warren Buffett

Currently the world's richest man, billionaire investor Warren Buffett has been fundraising for Obama since August 2007, but it was not until May 19, 2008 that he officially endorsed Barack Obama for President. Since then, he has headlined two campaign fundraisers which each cost $28,500 per plate. In the second Presidential debate, Barack Obama named Buffett as the ideal Secretary of the Treasury in his Administration.

Julius Genachowski

Although being new to political fundraising, Julius Genachowski, a co-founder and former senior official at the Federal Communications Commission, has become one of the most important money-raisers for Barack Obama. Now working as technology executive and investor, Genachowski was in charge of Obama's campaign technology, including his Web presence, and has blogged for his technology plan, even though he made only a single contribution. Genachowski knows Obama from their joint time at law school, where he served with Barack on the Harvard Law Review.

John Rogers

John Rogers, head of Ariel Capital Management, the country's first black-owned investment firm, joined Obama's inner circle through Michelle's brother Craig Robinson, who played basketball at Princeton University with Rogers. Mr. Rogers, a crucial early supporter of Obama, has raised more than $500,000 for the campaign. According to the New York Times, he pointed out that "his financial support for the senator had "no connection” to his company's efforts to win state contracts, but that it reflected the broader excitement over what Mr. Obama's success meant for blacks in America."

Orin Kramer

Manager of the hedge fund Boston Provident, LP, Orin Kramer surprised many in the New York donor circles when he put his financial support behind Obama instead of Hilary Clinton in January 2007. Kramer, a former White House aide for Jimmy Carter, who has also been a member of numerous government commissions, has been one of few historically large fundraisers in New York and New Jersey and in the past has raised large amounts for both Gore and Kerry.

Robert Wolf

Robert Wolf is the President and Chief Operating Officer for UBS Investment Bank and serves as Chairman & CEO for UBS Group for the Americas. According to a New York Magazine article, published in April 2007, Robert Wolf "has emerged as Obama's most copious cash collector in the city so far — hosting two high-dollar cocktail parties, making countless calls, harvesting more than $500,000." Since his fund-raising efforts for John Kerry’s presidential race in 2004 and for House and Senate Democrats in 2006, Mr. Wolf has established himself as one of the emerging fundraising figures.

Lester Crown and the Crown Family

Lester Crown is based in Chicago and has proved to be a large financial supporter of the Obama Presidential campaign. Crown is a member of the Board of Directors for the Maytag Corporation as well as the chairman of Chicago-based Henry Crown & Company, a private investment group. Since 2003, Lester Crown along with employees at Henry Crown & Company, have donated over $100,000 to Obama's various campaigns. In addition, the ten members of the Crown Family have donated about $112,500 to Obama's campaigns, and son James Crown is now the co-chair of the Illinois finance committee for Obama's Presidential campaign. With his wife Paula, James has also raised another $200,000 for Obama.

POLITICAL FRIENDS

Valerie Jarrett

A fixture in Chicago politics, Valerie Jarrett first met the Obamas in 1991 when she was chief of staff to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and she interviewed Michelle for a job in City Hall. Jarrett, a lawyer, began in city government as a deputy corporation counsel for finance and development. After her stint with Mayor Daley, Jarrett was a commissioner in the city's Planning and Development Department and then the chair of the Chicago Transit Board. Currently, she is a member of the University of Chicago's board of trustees, chairing its medical board, and vice chair of Chicago's bid for the Summer Olympics in 2016. As a result of her long-standing friendship with the Obama's, in the campaign she is an unpaid senior advisor, a confidant to both Michelle and Barack.

Michael Froman

A Harvard Law classmate, former chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and now a top executive at Citigroup, Michael Froman is a close friend and informal adviser to Barack Obama. According to a Los Angeles Time article, Michael Froman pointed out that Obama, leading the Harvard Law Review in 1990 and 1991, was respected by the review's divided factions and also made conservative staff feel “comfortable". "It's funny," Froman said, "but it's the same thing I hear now from some conservative friends of mine -- not that they agree with him on policy, but that they feel he hears them out. Unlike some of the firebrands on both the left and the right, he was just a very good listener."

Eric Whitaker

Eric Whitaker and Barack Obama met during their graduate studies at Harvard, and have remained friends since, with Obama recommending Gov. Blagojevich to hire Whitaker as Illinois Director of Public Health. Currently, he is the Executive Vice President of the University of Chicago Medical Center. During the campaign, Whitaker often traveled on the Obama plane as an unpaid senior advisor.

Martin Nesbitt

Officially the Obama for America campaign treasurer, Martin "Marty" Nesbitt is also an informal senior advisor and has been a close friend of Barack's for years, often playing basketball with Obama during free time. Obama is also the godfather to his son. Martin Nesbitt is a successful businessman in Chicago, serving as the President of PRG Parking Management, known as the Parking Spot, and also the Vice President of The Pritzker Realty Group. In addition, Nesbitt recruited Penny Pritzker, a close family friend, to be Obama campaign's National Fundraising Chairwoman.

Cassandra Q. Butts

A friend and advisor of Obama's since they met in the financial aid office at Harvard, Cassandra Butts serves as an advisor on domestic policy to the Obama campaign. She currently also serves as the Senior Vice President for Domestic Policy at the Center for American Progress. Prior to CAP, Butts was Obama's senior advisor after serving as a senior advisor to Rep. Richard A. Gephardt and his policy advisor during his 2004 presidential campaign.