Krish O’Mara Vignarajah

Krish O’Mara Vignarajah served as Policy Director for First Lady Michelle Obama, where she led the Let Girls Learn initiative the President and First Lady launched in 2015. She currently serves as CEO of LIRS, the largest faith-based nonprofit focused on immigration. Previously, she ran a groundbreaking campaign for Governor of Maryland. Before the White House, she served as Senior Advisor at the State Department for Secretary Hillary Clinton and Secretary John Kerry.

In this capacity, Vignarajah helped shape White House and State Department initiatives and programs related to entrepreneurship, private sector investment, public-private partnerships, global women’s issues, public diplomacy, engagement with youth and religious communities, development strategies concerning health, food security and climate change, the UN and other multilateral institutions, and regional issues relating to Africa and the Middle East. Before joining the Obama Administration, Vignarajah practiced law at Jenner & Block in Washington, DC, worked at McKinsey & Company, where she consulted for Fortune 100 companies, clerked for Chief Judge Michael Boudin on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and taught U.S. foreign policy and international law at Georgetown University as an adjunct faculty member.

Vignarajah attended Yale College, where she earned a Master’s degree in Political Science and a B.S. in Molecular Biology, graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. She was a Marshall Scholar at Oxford University (Magdalen College), where she received an M.Phil. in International Relations. At Yale Law School, she served as a senior editor on the Yale Law Journal and received the Potter Stewart Prize and the Harlan Fiske Stone Prize for best brief and best oralist during its Supreme Court competition.