US President Joe Biden on Friday elevated Indian American Gautam Raghavan to a new position- head of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel.
Raghavan’s promotion to the key White House post was announced after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres declared his intent to appoint Cathy Russell as the next executive director of UNICEF.
Raghavan was serving as deputy to Russel at the White House Office of Presidential Personnel, which is in charge of vetting and recruiting political appointees to about 4,000 jobs that do not career civil service positions.
Biden said that the Indian American official’s appointment will ensure a “seamless transition that will enable us to continue building a federal workforce that is efficient, effective, dependable, and diverse.”
According to the White House, Raghavan was the first employee Biden’s Transition Team hired and served as the deputy head of presidential appointments.
From there, he became deputy director of the personnel office with the title of deputy assistant to the president.
“I am also pleased that Gautam Raghavan, who has worked in tandem with Cathy from Day One, will become PPO’s new director — a seamless transition that will enable us to continue building a federal workforce that is efficient, effective, dependable and diverse,” Biden said in a statement.
A first-generation immigrant, Raghavan was born in India, raised in Seattle and graduated from Stanford University. He is the editor of “West Wingers: Stories from the Dream Chasers, Change Makers, and Hope Creators Inside the Obama White House.”
According to the White House, “he lives with his husband and their daughter in Washington.”
Raghavan worked in the White House Office of Public Engagement as liaison to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community and the Asian American and Pacific Islander community in the administration of former President Barack Obama.
He has been an adviser to the Biden Foundation.
His resume includes a stint as the chief of staff for Pramila Jayapal, the Indian American Democratic member of the House of Representatives who is the chair of the leftist group of lawmakers known as the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
“Raghavan served as chief of staff to US Representative Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), the Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and advised organisations focused on advancing civil rights and social justice, serving as an advisor to the Biden Foundation and as vice president of Policy for the Gill Foundation,” the White House said.
“During the Obama-Biden Administration, Raghavan served in the White House Office of Public Engagement as liaison to the LGBTQ community as well as the Asian American & Pacific Islander community, as acting White House liaison for the US Department of Defence, and as Outreach Lead for the Pentagon’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Working Group,” it said.
