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Reta Jo Lewis has over 25 years of global affairs, public policy, legal, legislative, regulatory and political experience. Currently, she is a Senior Fellow, the Director of Congressional Affairs, and a member of the leadership team at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Lewis leads and oversees initiatives, programs and bipartisan exchanges designed to engage U.S. Members of Congress and their national security and foreign policy staffers on a wide range of transatlantic policy issues and on opportunities for transatlantic cooperation between U.S and European legislative, policy and thought leaders. Under her leadership, she expanded the Congress- Bundestag Forum and established the first Transatlantic Technology Congressional Study Tour, a joint program with Software.org: The Business Software Alliance Foundation, to focus on global digital and privacy issues and is the creator of an annual convening of women of color in transatlantic leadership from across sectors to discuss national security issues and to highlight diverse voices in national security and foreign affairs. She joined GMF in 2015, as a Senior Resident Fellow with the Transatlantic Leadership Program, where she focuses on leadership development and subnational diplomacy efforts designed toadvance global engagement on both sides of the Atlantic. Lewis is a sought-after advisor and speaker on transatlantic relations, U.S. politics, leadership, subnational engagement and city diplomacy strategies, women empowerment, diversity and inclusion.

During the Obama Administration, she was appointed as the U. S. Department of States’ first-ever Special Representative for Global Intergovernmental Affairs, under Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry from 2010 to 2013. Lewis led the office charged with building strategic peer-to-peer relationships between the U.S. Department of State, U.S. state and local officials, and their foreign counterparts. In her post, she served as the State Department’s lead interlocutor innegotiating and executing the first historic agreements to solidify subnational cooperation and engagement efforts with BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) countries and with targeted countries in the European Union. She was the principal architect that led the global engagement of U.S. state and local government leaders’ integration into and strategy regarding sustainability and climate change to RIO+20, COP-16, COP-17 and COP-18. In 2013, she was awarded the Secretary’s Distinguished Service Award.

Prior to the U.S. Department of State, she served in senior positions in the public and private sectors, including political appointments in the Clinton White House. She was the Director of Business Outreach for the first Obama-Biden Transition Team. She served as the Vice President and Counselor to the President at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Director of theChamber’s effort focused on small business and outreach to women and minority-owned businesses, entrepreneurs and executives. Lewis served as the Special Assistant to the President for Political Affairs to President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1995 and the principal political advisor and Director of the Northeast and Southern Regions. During her tenure at the White House, Lewis was the Clinton Administration’s key point person in organizing the 1994 FIFA World Cup, the 1996 Olympics and Paralympic games in Atlanta.

Her legal experience includes stints serving as a Shareholder in the international law firm, Greenberg Traurig, Of Counsel at Arter and Hadden and she was Of Counsel at Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP, prior to joining the Obama Administration. She provided strategic corporate, legal, policy and public affairs counsel to firm clients, including national and international businesses, trade associations, educational institutions and non-profit organizations. Lewis specializes in working with U.S. Governors, Mayors, and legislators and provincial leaders throughout countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe on commercial diplomacy, trade and investment matters.

Lewis is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Lewis serves as an Associate Fellow for the Geneva Center for Security Policy, Global Fellows Institute. She is a member of the Nielsen Corporation African American Advisory Council and the Steering Committee of the Leadership Council for Women in National Security. She is also a Member of the Board of Directors of Blue Star Families and the African Diaspora Consortium. Additionally, Lewis serves as a member of the Advisory Council Georgetown University School of Law Project on State and Local Government, Policy, and Law and the Nonpartisan Voter Communications Taskforce at the University of Southern California. She is a member of the International Women’s Forum and the Washington DC Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Earlier in her career, Lewis organized and was the National Tour Director for the Democracy for South Africa, Nelson Mandela’s 8-city USA Tour in 1990. Lewis formerly served as the National Legal Counsel for Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., a Board Member on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation and Past President and Board Member of the Executive Women in Government.

She serves as a Member of the Biden National Finance Committee, National Security Leaders for Biden, a Biden member of the Rules Committee for the 2020 Democratic National Convention, and she is the National Chair of Women of Color for Biden. She also serves as an elected At-Large Committeewoman for the D.C. Democratic State Committee. She was a 2014 mayoral candidate in Washington, D.C.

Lewis was selected in the first class of the U.S. Presidential Management Fellow at the Department of Justice at the Drug Enforcement Administration in the Office of the Administrator. Lewis received her J.D. from Emory University School of Law, a M.S.A.J. from American University and a B.A. from the University of Georgia. She is admitted to the Bars of the District of Colombia and Georgia. She is a native of Statesboro, Georgia.