US President-elect announced White House staff appointments on Tuesday, 22 December, stating that Indian-American Gautam Raghavan will be appointed Deputy Director in the Office of Presidential Personnel and Biden’s long-time associate Vinay Reddy will be the Director of Speechwriting.
Reddy grew up in Dayton, Ohio, in an immigrant family and attended the Miami University and the Ohio State University College of Law. He served as the deputy speechwriter for the Obama-Biden re-election campaign and as chief speechwriter to Vice President Biden in the second term of the Obama-Biden White House.
More recently, he was the senior advisor and speechwriter for the Biden-Harris campaign and is currently the speechwriter on the Biden-Harris transition.
Gautam Raghavan, who is a first-generation immigrant, was born in India, raised in Seattle, and graduated from the Stanford University.
Raghavan is serving as the Deputy Head of Presidential Appointments on the Biden-Harris transition. Prior to joining the transition, Raghavan was the Chief of Staff to US Representative Pramila Jayapal, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
He’s also been an advisor to the Biden Foundation, and a Vice President of Policy for the Gill Foundation, one of the oldest and largest private foundations dedicated to the cause of LGBTQ equality.
During the Obama-Biden Administration, he served in the White House as the liaison to the LGBTQ community, as well as the Asian American & Pacific Islander community.
In his statement, Biden referred to Raghav and Reddy as “respected leaders whose values and priorities align with my own and who will dutifully execute their roles to serve the American people.”
He added, “Their dedication to overcoming the challenges facing our country are rooted in their diverse backgrounds and experiences, helping deliver the change America needs in these difficult times.”
This announcement comes along with four other senior White House staff appointments by Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris – Anne Filipic as Director of Management and Administration, Ryan Montoya as Director of Scheduling and Advance, Bruce Reed as Deputy Chief of Staff, and Elizabeth Wilkins as Senior Advisor to the Chief of Staff.
(inputs from PTI and IANS)
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