New Leaders Council is Proud to Announce
2009 “40 Under 40” Award Winners
The 40 Under 40 Awards were created by New Leaders Council (www.newleaderscouncil.org) to help recognize the hard work of a diverse group of young leaders including elected officials, inspiring community organizers, as well as non-profit and policy leaders who exemplify the spirit of progressive political entrepreneurship.
Chris Myers Asch
Co-Founder of the U.S. Public Service Academy
Analisa Balares
CEO and Founder of Womensphere Interactive Networks, LLC.
Chris Balme
Executive Director and Co-Founder of Spark (sparkprogram.org)
Phil Carter
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs, Department of Defense
Kjerstin Erickson
President and Founder of Forgenow.org
Shannon Farley
Executive Director of Spark (sparksf.org)
Jessica Valenti
Founder of Feministing.com, Author, and Women’s Rights activist
Abigail Falik
CEO and Founder of Global Citizen Year
Manuel Flores
Alderman on the Chicago Board of Aldermen
Jaclyn Friedman
Program Director for Center for New Words
Eric Garcetti
President of the Los Angeles City Council
Alexi Giannoulias
State Treasurer of Illinois
Andrew Golis
Deputy Publisher of Talking Points Memo
Andrae Gonzales
Executive Director of Faith in Action
Raj Goyle
Kansas State Representative
Ron Huberman
CEO of the Chicago Public Schools
Mark Jablonowski
President of Rogue Global Solutions
Dr. Barry Kendall
Executive Director of the Commonweal Institute
Jonathan Klein
Chief Program Officer of the Rogers Family Foundation
Carolyn Laub
Executive Director of the Gay-Straight Alliance Network
Clark Lee
Political Director of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party
Marissa Louie
CEO of AD-Village.com
Ben Ray Lujan
Congressman from the Third District of New Mexico (Sante Fe)
Zach Maurin
Executive Director of ServeNext.org
Dennis Nuxoll
Senior Director of Government Relations and Federal Policy of the American Farmland Trust
Afam Onyema
COO of the GEANCO Foundation
Adam Pase
Executive Director of the New Democrat Coalition
April Pedersen
Executive Director of DemocracyInAction.org
Tom Perriello
Congressman from the Fifth District of Virginia
Jennifer Pozner
Executive Director of Women in Media & News
Paul Rieckhoff
Founder and Executive Director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America
Michelle Rhee
Chancellor of the District of Columbia public schools
Mary Rickles
Director of Communications and Media, Netroots Nation and Democracy for America
Edgar Santana
Deputy Executive Director of the New York State Democratic Committee
Tom Serres
CEO and Founder of Piryx Inc
Nate Silver
Founder of Fivethirtyeight.com
Brian Smoot
Co-Founder and principal of 4C Partners
Marshall Tuck
CEO of the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools
Ben Tulchin
Founder and Principal of Tulchin Research
Sam Yoon
Boston City Councilor
About the “40 Under 40” Awards
The 40 Under 40 Awards was created by New Leaders Council (www.newleaderscouncil.org) to help recognize the hard work of a diverse group of young leaders including elected officials, inspiring community organizers, as well as non-profit and policy leaders who exemplify the spirit of progressive political entrepreneurship.
The nominees for the awards are produced by the progressive community. This year, NLC received over 300 nominations. The 40 winners were chosen for displaying extraordinary ability to create progressive change in an innovative and thoughtful manner across a wide variety of sectors as well as their representation of the young progressive network. NLC sought leaders from the labor, women’s rights, renewable energy, education, environmental protection, LGBT, health care, immigration, and working families movements to be honored by the 40 Under 40 Awards.
These awards will serve to credit the distinguished individuals for the exemplary work they do, we all as bridge the national progressive community together by celebrating these leaders with NLC events in five cities across the nation.
For more information about these events, please go here.
The “40 Under 40” Selection Process
NLC announced the open nominations for 40 Under 40 awards on April 28, 2009. NLC received over 300 unique applications and then blindly evaluated the nominees using a carefully selected a celebrity panel of judges. The judges consisted of elected officials, a leader of a major, national political organization, a private-sector entrepreneur, and a long-time political entrepreneur. This panel filled out a secret ballot, the votes were tallied, and the 40 winners were selected.
2008 “40 Under 40” Award Winners
New Leaders Council awarded the following individuals the honor of being a notable progressive in the 2008 “40 Under 40” Awards:
Libuse Binder, Aimee Boone, Raven Brooks, Gina Cooper, David Burd, Ethan Porter, Sarah Burris, Elizabeth Caputo, Andre Carson, Won Choi, Aimée Christensen, Jack Conway, Judith Freeman, Gabrielle Giffords, Amy Graham, Anton Gunn, Tyler Hudson, Aaron Keyak, Scott Kleeb, Rachel Kleinfeld, Matt Spence, Anima LaVoy, Ricky Le, Sarah Leonard, Nate Loewentheil, Kai Stinchcombe, Ian Manheimer, Dyana Mason, Peter Murray, Tony Payton Jr., Josh Shapiro, Jon Powers, Ben Rahn and Jonathan Zucker, Edmundo Rocha, Justin Rockfeller, Tim Ryan, Sam Stein, Emily Sussman, and Shaunna Thomas
For more information, including photos and bios of these winners, please go here.
Contact NLC
For questions or concerns about the 40 Under 40 Awards please contact:
Adam Borelli
NLC Executive Director
aborelli@newleaderscouncil.org
www.newleaderscouncil.org