Krish O'Mara Vignarajah | Source | President and CEO at Global Refuge

I am the President and CEO of Global Refuge, one of the nation's largest immigration services nonprofits. I previously served in the Obama White House as Policy Director for First Lady Michelle Obama and at the State Department as Senior Advisor under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of State John Kerry.

I've committed my career to public service because I knows how differently life could have turned out. I was 9 months old when my family escaped a country on the brink of civil war and built a life in Maryland. My parents came to this country with no jobs and $200 in their pockets. Thanks to their hard work, I was able to attend Yale College, where I earned a Master’s degree in Political Science, graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. I went on to become a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University, where I received an M.Phil. in International Relations, before returning to Yale Law School, where I served on the Yale Law Journal.

Before joining the White House, I practiced law at Jenner & Block in Washington, DC, clerked for Chief Judge Michael Boudin on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and taught at Georgetown University as an adjunct.