Ai-jen Poo

Ai-jen Poo is a next-generation labor leader, award-winning organizer, best-selling author, and the co-founder and President of the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA), a non-profit organization working to bring dignity and fairness to the growing numbers of workers who care and clean in our homes. In 12 short years, NDWA has grown to more than 70 affiliate organizations and chapters and over 200,000 members.

Under Poo’s leadership, NDWA has led successful campaigns to pass Domestic Worker Bills of Rights in 10 states and two cities and brought over two million home care workers under minimum wage protections. These bills have extended common workplace rights and protections to domestic workers for the first time, including paid overtime, safe and healthy working conditions, and freedom from sexual harassment. During the pandemic, Poo was one of the first labor activists to warn about the devastating impact of COVID-19, becoming a leading voice pushing federal, state, and local legislators to center domestic workers in ongoing recovery efforts. Under her leadership, the NDWA launched the Coronavirus Care Fund, raising $20 million in emergency assistance for domestic workers in need in just the first month.

In 2011, Poo launched Caring Across Generations, a campaign to address the nation’s crumbling care infrastructure, catalyzing groundbreaking policy change including the nation’s first family caregiver benefit in Hawaii and the first long-term care social insurance fund in Washington State. In 2015, she released her widely acclaimed book, "The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America," making the case for access to care for all families.

Poo has been a prominent voice in the women's movement and a key architect of the evolving #MeToo movement, working alongside Tarana Burke, Fatima Goss Graves, and Monica Ramirez. She helped launch #MeTooVoter to hold politicians accountable and the Survivors’ Agenda to advance justice and reshape the narrative around sexual violence in America. In 2019, she co-founded SuperMajority with Cecile Richards and Alicia Garza, aiming to train and mobilize a multiracial, intergenerational community for gender equity. Poo also serves as a Senior Advisor to Care in Action, a nonpartisan group advocating for the civic voice of millions of women of color.

Recognized among Fortune’s 50 World’s Greatest Leaders and Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the World, Poo has also been the recipient of countless awards, including a 2014 MacArthur "Genius" Grant. She has been a featured speaker at TEDWomen, Aspen Ideas Festival, Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, Skoll World Forum, and the Obama Foundation Inaugural Summit. Her writing has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, Marie Claire, Glamour, Cosmopolitan and CNN.com, among others.