Suman Raghunathan is a Senior Advisor at Fernandez Advisors. She has two decades of seasoned leadership, program development, and strategic vision in the immigrant rights, racial justice, civic engagement, and voter mobilization movements. Her expertise spans policy advocacy and analysis, legislative strategy and targeting, fundraising and network development, and communications.
Suman most recently served for five years as the Executive Director of South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT). During her tenure, the organization grew its community partner network by over 50%; spearheaded its first candidate voter guides in 2016 & 2018; significantly expanded its Congressional strategy and relationships; deepened its field-based organizing and base-building; led effective campaigns on hate violence and immigrant detention; and secured its largest-ever foundation funding grants.
Suman has been quoted in The New York Times, Newsweek, the Nation, NBC News, and other major news outlets. Her op-eds have appeared in The Nation, The Hill, The Sacramento Bee, and she has appeared on the PBS NewsHour and MSNBC.
An experienced communicator, tactician and long-term strategic thinker, Suman has worked in both full-time and consultant capacities with the ACLU, the Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights, Chhaya Community Development Corporation, Progressive States Network, and the New York Immigration Coalition. A 2018-2019 fellow of the Rockwood Leadership Institute's Leading from the Inside Out cohort, Suman holds a Bachelor's Degree in International Relations from Brown University and a Master's Degree in Nonprofit Management and Urban Policy from the New School