Michele Jawando

Michele Jawando
Born
Michele Lawrence Jawando

New York, U.S.
NationalityUnited States of America
EducationHampton University
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
SpouseWill Jawando
Children4
RelativesLois Browne-Evans (great-aunt)

Michele Lawrence Jawando is an American Senior Vice-President of Omidyar Network. She has previously worked as a podcaster, a co-host on Sirius XM, on Google's Public Policy and the Center for American Progress.

Life[edit]

She was born in New York and her mother was a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Her great-aunt was Lois Browne-Evans, Bermuda's first woman black lawyer (who was knighted). Jawando spent a lot of time in Bermuda as she and her family would move there sometimes. She graduated from Hampton University in Virginia and she gained her doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law.[1]

Jawando worked for the US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.[1] She then worked for the liberal[2] Center for American Progress (CAP) when she co-hosted their podcast Thinking CAP before she joined Google.[1] She was employed on Google's Public Policy team to look after relationships with thought-leaders, non-profit companies, politicians and think-tanks.[3]

Jawando, Doreen Bogdan-Martin and Rebeca Grynspan at UNCTAD eWeek in December 2023

Media[edit]

She has been a co-host of Sirius XM, as well as a podcaster.[4][1]

In 2015, President Barack Obama went to visit an American jail to further his work in countering racial discrimination in the US justice system. The British newspaper The Guardian turned to Jawando for comment. Some saw Obama as a lame-duck President but Jawando saw that this was his opportunity to address US systemic bias. She pointed out that he had a special outlook because he was the first African-American President.[5]

Jawando has been brought in as an expert to give her insight into American politics where she volunteered that the (then) President Donald Trump was not telling the truth.[6]

In 2020, she was one of ten people to receive the Caribbean American Heritage Award because of her Caribbean heritage and for her outstanding contributions to corporate America.[1]

As of January 2023, Jawando was senior vice president for programs of the Omidyar Network.[7]

Personal life[edit]

President Barack Obama holds up Jawando's four-month-old child in 2011

Jawando first met her husband, Will Jawando, in 2004 at the Chi-Cha Lounge in Washington, D.C. They were engaged nine months later. Together, they have four children and live in Sandy Spring, Maryland.[8]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e "Michele Jawando". Caribbean American Heritage Awards. Retrieved 6 Dec 2023.
  2. ^ Eilperin, Juliet (February 24, 2010). "Former White House adviser Van Jones lands new D.C. gig at liberal think tank". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2012-11-13. Jones, who has been consulting for companies and nonprofits on environmental issues, will start teaching at Princeton University in June and is rejoining the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, next month.
  3. ^ "Michele Jawando -Higher Heights Leadership Fund". www.higherheightsleadershipfund.org. Retrieved 2023-12-06.
  4. ^ "A Crisis Moment for the LGBT Community". Center for American Progress. 2017-07-27. Retrieved 2023-12-06.
  5. ^ Siddiqui, Sabrina (2015-07-16). "'An injustice system': Obama's prison tour latest in late-term reform agenda". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2023-12-06.
  6. ^ "Michele Jawando: Number of falsehoods spread by Trump are 'too great to count'". Sky News. March 15, 2017. Retrieved 2023-12-06.
  7. ^ Kurtz, Josh (January 19, 2023). "When it comes to celebrities at the inauguration, there's Oprah and there's everybody else". Maryland Matters. Retrieved May 1, 2023.
  8. ^ Adams, Caralee (June 19, 2022). "Tales of talking trees and counterterrorism". MoCo360. Retrieved May 2, 2023.