Presidential Lecture Series

Maria Echaveste
Co-Founder, Nueva Vista Group

"A Bilingual Nation: Immigration and Labor Challenges in the 21st Century"
September 13, 2004

Maria Echaveste, co-founder of the Nueva Vista Group, has built a distinguished career working as a senior White House official, long-time community leader, and corporate attorney. Ms. Echaveste's background provides her with a unique understanding of how to develop and implement a successful legislative strategy and how to build new alliances to support the work of her non-profit and corporate clients.

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Prior to founding the Nueva Vista Group, she served as Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff for President Clinton, a position she held from May 1998 through January 2001. In this role, Ms. Echaveste had oversight responsibility for many of the President's domestic policy initiatives, including education, civil rights, immigration and bankruptcy reform. Working with a team of core advisors, Ms. Echaveste developed communications, legislative and public outreach strategies for the White House. She also coordinated federal disaster relief, for both foreign and domestic disasters, and focused on international issues relating to Latin America.

As a long-time community leader and Assistant to the President and Director of Public Liaison at the White House from February 1997 to May 1998, Ms. Echaveste built an extensive network of relationships and contacts with diverse organizations and communities throughout the country. Prior to working in the White House, Ms. Echaveste served as the Administrator of the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division, from June 1993 to early 1997. In that capacity, she deepened her knowledge of U.S. labor laws and issues relating to labor and management relations.

Ms. Echaveste is a frequent guest on the weekly PBS television show "To the Contrary," a women's political roundtable focused on issues of national interest. She is involved in politics and national policy as a member of the Executive Committee of the Democratic National Committee. Ms Echaveste is also a member of the Board of Directors of People for the American Way and CARE, a humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. She also serves as a member of the Advisory Board of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Mexico Institute.

Ms. Echaveste received a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology from Stanford University in 1976. In 1980, Ms. Echaveste received a Juris Doctor from the University of California at Berkeley. She worked as an attorney specializing in corporate litigation for firms in Los Angeles and New York, becoming special counsel in 1989 with the New York firm of Rosenman & Colin.