Chris Lu

Christopher P. Lu (; born June 12, 1966) is a Taiwanese-American lawyer and political advisor who served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for management and reform from 2022 to 2025. He was also an alternative representative to the United Nations General Assembly during his tenure as Representative for Management and Reform.

Born to Taiwanese American immigrants, Lu graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, where he was a classmate of Barack Obama. In the Obama administration, he served as the United States Deputy Secretary of Labor from 2014 to 2017, the White House Cabinet Secretary and Assistant to the President from 2009 to 2013, and the co-chair of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

After serving briefly as an advisor on Senator John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign, Lu began working for Barack Obama in 2005 in his U.S. Senate office, where Lu served as legislative director and acting chief of staff. Following Obama's successful 2008 campaign for presidency, Lu was appointed executive director of the Obama-Biden Transition Project. When Obama appointed Lu as Cabinet Secretary, The New York Times described him as "one of the highest-ranking Asian Americans in the Obama administration". In 2018, Lu was elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

Early life and education Chris Lu was born on June 12, 1966, in New Jersey to a Taiwanese American family. Lu's grandfather, Wang Renyuan, was the Minister of Justice of Taiwan from 1970 to 1976 and was elected to the first Legislative Yuan in 1948 to represent Tianjin.

In 1974, Lu's family moved to the Fallsmead neighborhood of Rockville, Maryland, where he graduated from Thomas S. Wootton High School in 1984. Lu said he was heavily influenced by his father, who worked as an electrical engineer but loved literature and history; the two would read biographies of politicians and watch the evening news together.

Lu attended the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, where he was the senior news editor of the Daily Princetonian. Lu's ambition for a political career developed at Princeton, particularly during his internship in the Capitol Hill office of Senator Charles Mathias. He graduated magna cum laude in 1988, after writing a 161-page long senior thesis titled "Press Coverage of Presidential Primaries, 1972-1984." After graduating from Princeton, Lu attended Harvard Law School, where he was one of Barack Obama's classmates, from 1988 to 1991 and was elected the class marshall and served as an editor of the Harvard Journal on Legislation.

Career After graduating cum laude from Harvard in 1991 with his Juris Doctor (J.D.), Lu later said he considers Schiliro and Pete Rouse, another future White House staffer, among his most influential mentors. Lu advised Obama to vote in favor of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 because he felt it would have been politically wiser to support it, but Obama ultimately voted against it.

Lu eventually became acting chief of staff in Obama's Senate office. When Obama announced his candidacy for president in February 2007, Lu did not move over to the campaign, but remained to continue running Obama's operations in the Senate; Lu said of Obama at that time, "Even while he was running for president, he had a day job [in the Senate]." Obama warned him to tell no one about the nascent operation, even his own wife, so Lu quietly rented a small office in D.C. The planning efforts produced policy options on a wide range of topics, compiled names of and began vetting potential political appointees for top jobs, arranged over 100 security clearances, and managed the logistics for expanding the operations after Election Day.

After Obama's victory, Lu became executive director of the Obama-Biden Transition Project, a position that was responsible for the day-to-day operations of the transition. During the transition period, Lu was in daily contact with Bush administration officials, managed the $9 million budget, and negotiated the ground rules for Obama transition representatives to gather information on federal agency operations and programs.

In July 2009, Lu visited China as part of an official delegation for the Obama administration, along with Locke and Chu. Although his parents were born there, it was the first time Lu had set foot on Chinese soil. In July 2010, Lu was a member of the official U.S. delegation to the Shanghai Expo, along with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

On January 8, 2014, Lu was nominated by President Obama to be the Deputy Secretary for the United States Department of Labor. He was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate on April 1, 2014. Lu became the first Asian American to hold the position, and only the second Asian American in history to serve as deputy secretary of a cabinet department, after Elaine Chao. Lu's service in this position ended on January 20, 2017, concurrent with the end of the Obama Administration.

Career after Obama administration Lu soon took up positions as a Senior Fellow of the University of Virginia Miller Center, specializing in presidential scholarship, and as a senior advisor to FiscalNote. He remains heavily involved as a DNC superdelegate and co-chaired DNC Chairman Tom Perez's transition committee.

In November 2020, Lu was named a volunteer member of the Joe Biden presidential transition Agency Review Team to support transition efforts related to the United States Department of Labor.

Ambassador to United Nations On April 27, 2021, President Joe Biden nominated Lu to serve as Permanent Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations for UN Management and Reform. Hearings on his nomination were held before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 27, 2021. The committee reported his nomination favorably on August 4, 2021. The United States Senate confirmed Lu on December 18, 2021, by voice vote, and he was sworn into office on January 4, 2022.

Career after Biden administration

In November 2025, Lu was appointed co-chair of Abigail Spanberger's gubernatorial transition team.