Maria Echaveste

Maria Echaveste (born May 31, 1954) is an American politician and civil rights activist who was a U.S. presidential advisor to Bill Clinton and White House Deputy Chief of Staff during the second Clinton administration. She is one of the highest-ranking Latinas to have served in a presidential administration. She is currently a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a co-founder of the Nueva Vista Group, a policy, legislative strategy and advocacy group working with non-profit and corporate clients.

Early life Echaveste was born in Texas as one of seven children born to Mexican immigrants. Her family later moved to California, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in anthropology from Stanford University in 1976 and a Juris Doctor from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Boalt Hall) in 1980. Following her graduation from Boalt, Echaveste specialized in corporate litigation at the former Los Angeles firm Wyman Bautzer and at Rosenman & Colin in New York. 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, the 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, Echaveste was responsible for managing the White House preparations for the millennium celebrations and the 2000 presidential transition. Echaveste is currently a commentator on MSNBC. She is a member of the executive committee of the Democratic National Committee and Mi Familia Vota. She previously was a member of the board of directors of People for the American Way, the Children's Law Center of Washington, D.C., CARE, a humanitarian organization fighting global poverty, and the Level Playing Field Institute, an organization devoted to promoting fairness in education and the workplace. She was married to Chris Edley, whom she met while working together in the Clinton Administration.

In 2010 she served as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's special representative to Bolivia. In September 2014, President Barack Obama nominated Echaveste to become the United States Ambassador to Mexico. She would have become the first woman to hold the position but she withdrew her name from consideration on January 31, 2015.