Neera Tanden

Neera Tanden
Tanden in 2024
23rd Director of the Domestic Policy Council
Assumed office
May 26, 2023
PresidentJoe Biden
DeputyZayn Siddique
Preceded bySusan Rice
Senior Advisor to the President
for Health Care Policy and the U.S. Digital Service
In office
May 17, 2021 – May 25, 2023
PresidentJoe Biden
Preceded byJared Kushner
Stephen Miller
Ivanka Trump
Succeeded byAnnie Tomasini
White House Staff Secretary
In office
October 25, 2021 – May 25, 2023
PresidentJoe Biden
DeputyMichael Hochman
Preceded byJessica Hertz
Succeeded byStefanie Feldman
Personal details
Born (1970-09-10) September 10, 1970 (age 54)
Bedford, Massachusetts, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
Spouse
(m. 1999)
Children2
EducationUniversity of California, Los Angeles (BA)
Yale University (JD)

Neera Tanden (born September 10, 1970) is an American political consultant and government official serving as director of the United States Domestic Policy Council since 2023. Tanden previously served as a senior advisor and staff secretary to President Joe Biden from 2021 to 2023 and as president of the Center for American Progress (CAP), a center-left policy research and advocacy organization, where she worked in different capacities since its founding in 2003 until she joined the Biden administration in 2021.

Tanden has worked on several Democratic presidential campaigns, including those of Michael Dukakis in 1988, Bill Clinton in 1992, and Barack Obama in 2008. Tanden was a senior staffer to Hillary Clinton during her 2000 election to a United States Senate seat in New York, and during Clinton's tenure as a Senator. Tanden advised Clinton during her run for the 2008 Democratic nomination, and later helped her defeat Bernie Sanders to win the nomination in 2016, and run against Donald Trump in the 2016 general election. In her government service with the Obama administration, Tanden helped draft the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

In November 2020, then President-elect Joe Biden announced he would nominate Tanden as Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director. However, Tanden asked for the nomination to be withdrawn after Senator Joe Manchin announced that he would not vote in favor of confirmation. In May 2021, Tanden was appointed as a senior advisor to the president, and was later named as White House Staff Secretary in October 2021.

It was announced on May 5, 2023, that Tanden would replace Susan Rice as Director of the United States Domestic Policy Council.