NICK RATHOD
Chief of Staff
Over the span of his career Nick has built a reputation for producing impactful work across politics, business, and entertainment—building successful campaigns, institutions, businesses, and creative projects, while serving as a trusted advisor to some of the nation’s most influential leaders.
In Government, Nick served as Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director for Intergovernmental Affairs in the White House and was the Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for the Obama-Biden Transition Team. In these roles, Nick served as a senior member of the White House staff and specifically was President Obama’s liaison to states and U.S. territories, handling political and policy engagement across the states, territories and tribal governments. Nick was especially critical in helping shape and get signed into law health care legislation, Wall Street reform and equal pay legislation.
Nick was also a critical member of the team that set up and built a government agency, called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to help protect Consumers from being taken advantage of by financial institutions like payday lenders and others. He served as the Assistant Director of the Bureau and in this role was the United States Representative globally for consumer finance issues working with US counterparts in foreign governments as well as central banks to address domestic aligned consumer finance issues across the world.
In campaigns, Nick has served on several different Presidential and other campaigns, including most recently as a senior advisor on the Harris/Walz Campaign. Nick also served as the campaign manager for Beto O’Rourke’s race for Governor of Texas. The campaign was the largest gubernatorial campaign in American history. The campaign was additionally historic as Nick was the first person of Indian descent to run a statewide campaign in America.
Nick has also built several non-profit organizations. Notably, Nick was the founder and first Executive Director of the State Innovation Exchange (SiX), which was created and designed to support state lawmakers with developing and getting passed into law state legislation. During his time there, Nick merged several similar organizations together, grew SiX from an idea to a multimillion-dollar organization with more than 30 staff that continues to impact state policy making in states across the country.
In business, Nick has built a successful boutique consulting business, which is focused on advising businesses, foundations, non-profits and candidates for elected office. He was also the founding partner in a venture capital fund called the United Dream Fund, which helps support and capitalize immigrant entrepreneurs at the pre-seed stage of their growth. Nick is also currently a founding partner in the building of the first ever sneaker and streetwear museum in Houston, TX.
Finally, in Hollywood and creative production, Nick has brought the same vision and execution he applied in politics and business to storytelling and film. He was the Executive Producer of the multi-award-winning short film Now & Never. He advised Sunset Pictures and People of Culture Studios specifically focused on strategic growth and development of the studios—including team building, fundraising, marketing, and production. He also consulted for MonkeyPaw Studios on the newly released film Monkey Man, Dev Patel’s directorial debut. Nick is currently the Executive Producer for two documentaries in development, including The History of Chai and an untitled film on South Asian Americans in Politics.