Maria Echaveste is an attorney and former U.S. presidential advisor to Bill Clinton and White House Deputy Chief of Staff under the second Clinton administration. She is one of the highest-ranking Latinas to have served in a presidential administration. Ms. Echaveste’s background provides her with a unique understanding of how to develop and implement successful legislative strategy and how to build new alliances to support the work of her non-profit and corporate clients. She has built a distinguished career working as a senior White House official, long-time community leader, and corporate attorney.

From 1998 to 2001, Maria Echaveste served as both Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton. Echaveste managed Clinton's domestic policy initiatives on education, civil rights, immigration and bankruptcy reform. She also coordinated relief efforts within the White House for foreign and domestic disasters, and specialized in international issues related to Latin America including the Caribbean Basin Initiative and Africa Growth Opportunity Act and Plan Colombia, a federal effort to assist Colombia in its anti-drug campaign. At the end of the Clinton administration Ms. Echaveste had responsibility for the management of the White House preparations for the millennium celebrations and the 2000 Presidential transition.

Prior to working as the Assistant and Deputy Chief of Staff to President Clinton, Ms. Echaveste served as Director of Public Liaison at the White House from February 1997 to May 1998, where she developed communications, legislative and public outreach strategies. From 1993 to 1997, Ms. Echaveste served as the administrator of the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor. In that capacity, she deepened her knowledge of U.S. labor laws and issues relating to labor and management relations. 

After leaving the White House, Ms. Echaveste co-founded the Nueva Vista Group, a strategic and policy consulting group that works with nonprofit organizations, associations and corporations on such issues as immigration, health care, telecommunications, labor and finances. Ms. Echaveste is a commentator on the weekly PBS television show "To the Contrary," a women’s political roundtable focused on issues of national interest. She is involved in politics and national policy as a member of the Executive Committee of the Democratic National Committee, a member of the Board of Directors of People for the American Way, the Children's Law Center of Washington, D.C., and CARE, a humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. She also serves as a member of the Advisory Board of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute.