Meet the Team

Linh Nguyễn (she/her)

President

  • Linh has extensive political campaign experience, specializing in strategy, outreach, and mobilization to AAPI communities and young voters.

    She’s traveled the country working for political candidates up and down the ballot, including Senator Bernie Sanders, Senator Cory Booker, Senator Jon Ossoff, Senator Raphael Warnock, and Beto O’Rourke’s campaign for Governor in Texas. She’s also managed successful local campaigns in Houston, sending elected women of color to Austin, Texas.

    Her organizing experience includes building AAPI relational organizing tools in southern states; operating a statewide WhatsApp misinformation campaign for South Asian voters in Georgia; activating young AAPI digital creators for national Get-Out-The-Vote content; running in-language voter protection hotlines for Asian communities; and designing English and in-language digital ads, from media planning to placement.

    Linh has also expanded her experience beyond campaigns while consulting in disaster relief & public health emergencies for vulnerable communities under Governor Newsom’s Office of Emergency Services. She’s also made the jump into social impact projects in entertainment, collaborating with entrepreneurs, artists, and celebrities.

    She’s currently the President of AAPI Victory Fund, the first national super pac for AAPI voters and candidates. She spends her free time growing political grassroots power in Texas, where she, her partner, and her daughter call home.

Vaibhav Jain (he/him)

Vice President of Partnerships and Programming

  • Vaibhav is the Vice President of Partnerships and Programming at the AAPI Victory Fund. He is responsible for developing and executing the organization’s strategy to mobilize and turnout 11 million Asian American and Pacific Islander voters in U.S. elections. Vaibhav leads constituent outreach, manages candidate endorsements, and is responsible for curating the Victory Fund’s digital and social media channels.

    A public health specialist, graphic designer and consummate organizer, Vaibhav began his career as a community health dentist in small villages across southern India. That experience inspired him to seek systemic change which advances equity and opportunity for marginalized populations. Over the past decade, Vaibhav has worked for universities, think tanks, advocacy, and intergovernmental organizations.

    In 2020, he served as Senior Advisor for AAPI Outreach and Engagement on Joe Biden’s winning presidential campaign. He then joined President-elect Biden’s transition team where he helped coordinate appointments to the U.S. Departments Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development and Veterans Affairs. Prior to his experiences in electoral politics, Vaibhav spent five years as a qualitative researcher at the American Institutes for Research. He was also a fellow at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. Vaibhav has a master’s degree in public health from George Washington University in Washington, DC and a bachelor’s degree in dental surgery from Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences in Bangalore, India.

    Vaibhav is a vocal advocate for LGBTQ+ rights. He grew up in New Delhi and now lives in New York with his husband Parag Mehta. In October of 2020, they filed a petition with the Delhi High Court seeking recognition of their marriage. The case is pending and could help pave the way for marriage equality in the world’s largest democracy.

Nick Rathod (he/him)

SeniorAdvisor

  • Nick Rathod serves as a Senior Advisor at the AAPI Victory Fund. Nick is a seasoned leader in politics, government, business, and media. He served as Special Assistant to President Obama, helping pass landmark reforms. As a key advisor, he helped establish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Nick has led major campaigns, including managing Beto O’Rourke’s historic Texas race. He founded the State Innovation Exchange (SiX), strengthening progressive policymaking. He has raised millions to support political campaigns, causes, and institutions. Nick runs a boutique consulting firm and co-founded the United Dream Fund. He has built organizations advancing voting rights, civil rights, and workers’ rights. In Hollywood, he has produced award-winning films and consulted for major studios. Nick is currently producing documentaries on chai and South Asian Americans in politics.

Erika Moritsugu (she/her)

SeniorAdvisor

  • Erika Moritsugu serves as a Senior Advisor at the AAPI Victory Fund. Erika is a career public servant who has devoted her life to building opportunities for underserved communities through economic policy, civil rights advocacy, and the law in roles with the federal Congressional and Executive Branches, local government, non-profit organizations, and as a volunteer.

    In April 2021, President Joe Biden appointed her to serve as Deputy Assistant to the President and the first-ever Asian American and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Senior Liaison at the White House. She has also served in two other Administrations, four agencies, and three Senate offices, including Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Senator Daniel K. Akaka from her home state of Hawai‘i, and at the Senate Democratic Policy Committee under Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

    She lives in Washington D.C. with her husband, Brian, their two children Vianne Leilani and Chester Likeke, and their two cats.

Elle Kurata (she/her)

Creative Director

  • Elle Kurata is the Creative Director at the AAPI Engagement Fund, dedicated to amplifying Asian American and Pacific Islander voices through innovative storytelling and impactful programs. Based in New York, Elle brings experience as a seasoned producer, making film, commercial and documentary. Her work prominently features the development of content creator programs designed to empower and elevate diverse narratives within the AAPI community.

Board of Directors

Shekar Narasimhan (he/him)

Chairman and Founder

  • Shekar Narasimhan is Chairman and Founder of the AAPI Victory Fund, one of the first of its kind SuperPac’s focused exclusively on building the political power of the Asian American Pacific Islander community.

    In his business life, Shekar is the Managing Partner at Beekman Advisors which provides strategic advisory services to companies and investors involved in real estate, mortgage finance, affordable housing and related sectors. Shekar is a Co-Founder for the Remergent Communities Fund, an Opportunity Zone Fund, focusing on small towns and cities in the Southeast U.S. He also serves as Chairman of Papillon Capital, focused on sustainable infrastructure investing. Prior to Beekman Advisors, Shekar Narasimhan was a Managing Director of Prudential Mortgage Capital Company, one of the nation’s leading providers of commercial mortgage financing. Immediately prior to Shekar’s time at Prudential, he was Chairman & CEO of the WMF Group, a publicly traded, commercial mortgage financial services company. WMF was one of the largest such firms in the country before being acquired by Prudential in 2000.

    Shekar is currently serving on the boards of Broadstone Net Lease, Inc., Enterprise Community Partners, Inc. and the Democracy Alliance. He is on the Economic Advisory Council for the Center for American Progress and is a member of the Urban Institute’s Policy Leadership Council. He has served on many boards, including the Low Income Investment Fund, the Community Preservation and Development Corporation, the National Housing Conference and the National Multi Housing Council. He is a sought-after speaker on housing finance and affordable housing and is considered a leading expert on rental housing issues in the United States.

    Shekar was appointed by Governors McAuliffe and Northam of Virginia as a Commissioner for the Virginia Housing Development Authority and is currently serving as its Chairman. Previously, he also served as a Member of the Board for Housing and Community Development in Virginia, and as a Commissioner on President Obama’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. He was on the founding board of Indiaspora, a nonprofit organization founded by community leaders to unite Indian Americans and to transform their success into meaningful impact in India and on the global stage. He was also Co-Founder of Upakar Foundation, a higher education scholarship fund.

    Shekar has served several terms on the Mortgage Bankers Association of America (MBA) Board of Directors, was the first Chair of the MBA’s Commercial/Multifamily Board of Governors, and founded its Multifamily Steering Committee. He was elected as the first Chair of the Fannie Mae DUS Advisory Committee.

Aurora Austriaco (she/her)

Board Member

  • Aurora Austriaco is a litigation attorney concentrating in the areas of Commercial, Business and Real Estate Litigation at Valentine Austriaco and Bueschel, P.C. She also serves on numerous Corporate Boards, Not for Profit Boards and Commissions. Aurora was the past President of the Chicago Bar Association - one of the oldest and largest metropolitan bar in the country with over 22,000 members and the first Asian American to serve as its President.

Bel Leong-Hong (she/her)

Co-Founder

  • Bel Leong-Hong is the President and CEO of a small technology and management consulting company, which she started in 1999, after a very exciting 30-years career in public service.

    She held many “first” senior level positions, including being the “first” career female Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) to become the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence (C3I), and the first female AAPI civilian senior executive to become the Deputy Commander of the Joint Interoperability and Engineering Organization.

    She became politically active after leaving Government, campaigning for Democratic candidates up and down the ballot, fundraising for the National party, for the Maryland Democratic Party, for AAPI political organizations, and for candidates She has been an At-Large member of the DNC since 2001, and in 2005 she became the Chair of the DNC AAPI Caucus, She is a member of the DNC Executive Council, the Women’s Caucus, and she and her fellow Caucus Chairs have formed the Quad Caucus Chairs Group.

    She is a National Co-Chair of the DNC Asian American Leadership Council, and a member of the National Finance Council. In her own state of MD, she is a Trustee of the MD State Democratic Party, and is a member of the MDP Executive Council, a member of the Business Council, the Leadership Council, and the Women Leadership Network of MD. She is also a member of the Asian American Advisory Council to the Attorney General of the State of Maryland, as well as the State of MD’s Attorney General’s Cybersecurity Commission.

Dr. Jeffrey Roh (he/him)

Board Member

  • Jeffrey Roh is the Chief Executive Officer of IntuitiveX, a life science consultancy and incubator created to help entrepreneurs and startups transform their ideas from concept to commercialization. He has helped build and mobilize the AAPI community in Washington State over many years.

Dilawar Syed (he/him)

Co-Founder

  • Dilawar Syed is an entrepreneur and former U.S. cabinet official whose leadership has spanned various public and private sector organizations including as Deputy Administrator for the U.S. Small Business Administration and Special Envoy for Commercial Affairs at the State Department under President Joe Biden. In his decades-long career in Silicon Valley, Dilawar has led and scaled ventures in healthcare, artificial intelligence, and software.

    Dilawar’s most recent role as SBA Deputy Administrator began with a bipartisan vote of the U.S. Senate. Dilawar advanced the Administration's priorities for small businesses by democratizing access to capital ($56B in 2004; most deals since 2008), government contracting, and entrepreneurship training, especially in underserved communities. Dilawar helped lead SBA’s disaster response after Hurricanes Helene and Milton in the Southeast, the Frances Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore MD, and the devastating wildfires in Maui, HI.

    As Special Envoy for Commercial Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, Dilawar served as America’s top commercial diplomat advocating for U.S. companies abroad and ensuring America’s strategic competitiveness. In this role, he mobilized private sector support for Ukraine in the wake of Russia's invasion, advocated for strategic commercial deals in energy, aviation and defense, advanced U.S. tech leadership, and negotiated better business environments in his 24 bilateral visits across the globe.

    Dilawar has previously served as CEO of Lumiata, an AI company backed by Khosla Ventures and BlueCross BlueShields that leveraged tech to reduce healthcare costs and improve outcomes, and as President at Freshworks where he founded the software company's North America business overseeing sales and marketing and customer operations prior to the company going public in 2021. Earlier in his career, Dilawar oversaw business operations at Yahoo!'s Platform & Infrastructure Division and was a product manager at Siebel Systems. He started his career in management consulting at Ernst & Young and Deloitte Consulting. 

    Dilawar’s civic entrepreneurship has spanned local, state, and federal governments. In 2010, President Obama appointed Dilawar to his Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. In this role, Dilawar led the administration’s engagement with small businesses after the passage of the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009. In 2017, he founded the California Entrepreneurship Task Force with the California Governor's Office, a first-of-its-kind effort to promote inclusive entrepreneurship by bridging Silicon Valley with the state's rural heartland. The initiative served as a key resource for small businesses during the COVID pandemic. 

    Dilawar holds an MBA from The Wharton School and a BA in Computer Science and Economics from The University of Texas at Austin.

Arshi Siddiqui (she/her)

Board Member

  • Arshi Siddiqui is a partner at Akin Gump where she helps clients in successfully navigating complex legislative and regulatory challenges faced by corporate and nonprofit clients. Drawing upon more than 20 years of public- and private-sector experience, her practice focuses on synthesizing policy and politics into viable legislative strategies on tax, technology, international trade, telecommunications and health care issues.

    Before joining Akin Gump in 2010, Arshi served as senior advisor and counsel to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. During her time in the Speaker’s office, Arshi worked on tax, international trade, innovation, health, financial and retirement issues. She worked closely with the relevant committees, House and Senate leadership, the administration and members of Congress to develop policy and formulate strategy on legislative priorities, many of which were ultimately signed into law.

    Earlier in her career, Arshi worked in various capacities to broaden her skill set, including working with the House Ways and Means Committee for Congressman Xavier Becerra (D-CA), Congresswoman Eva Clayton (D-NC), a presidential campaign as well as a bipartisan lobbying firm.

David H. Lee (he/him)

Board Member

  • David is the President and Co-founder of the Texas Signal. He focuses on strategic partnerships, business growth, and policy for the progressive media organization. Previously, he was the Texas Political Director for Mike Bloomberg’s Presidential campaign, the National Finance Coalitions Director for Beto O’Rourke’s Presidential campaign, and was a Policy Advisor for Beto O’Rourke during his 2018 Senate campaign. David graduated from Georgetown University, majoring in government and political theory, and received a masters degree in international political economy from Stanford University. David is on the boards of Vote Simple, Chicken and Egg Pictures, and To Educate All Children. David is a member of the Philanthropy Workshop, Patriotic Millionaires, and Donors of Color, and is founder of the super pac PAC That A$$.

Rohini Kosoglu (she/her)

Board Member

  • Rohini Kosoglu is a leading national expert on domestic policy and veteran of the White House, Congress, and presidential campaigns. She currently serves as a Policy Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) and Director of Public Policy and Political Affairs at the Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign. She is also a Venture Partner at Fusion Fund, a venture firm that focuses on early-stage technology and health care investments. Kosoglu has been at the forefront of driving transformative change in social, technology, and economic policy over the last two decades. She also has the distinction of being the first South Asian American woman to hold the roles of both Domestic Policy Advisor to the Vice President and Chief of Staff in the United States Senate. She recently served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Domestic Policy Advisor to the Vice President.

Sima Ladjevardian (she/her)

Board Member

  • Sima Ladjevardian is a lawyer, a mother of two, a breast cancer survivor, small business owner, a community and political activist. After leaving political upheaval and revolution, Sima’s family arrived in the United States and, through her journey as an immigrant, she saw first-hand the power and promise this country can provide. She has since worked extensively to ensure that hardworking families have all the opportunities to strive and be healthy. She was one of the first Iranian-American major party nominees for Congress. She was named as Houston’s Most Influential Women 2020-2021.

    For the last 2 years, she was appointed as Regional Director for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, serving as HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra’s representative responsible for guiding and coordinating HHS policy initiatives as they related to state, local, and tribal governments in Region 6 covering Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas, as well as 68 federally recognized tribal nations.

    Ms. Ladjevardian was appointed as Chair of the National Women’sBusiness Council, a non-partisan federal advisory committee to the President, the U.S. Congress and the Administrator of the SBA. She is also serves as Trustee of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and Harris Health Health Systems. She has served on many boards in the past including the Center for Public Policy and Priorities and AAPI Victory Alliance.

    Ms. Ladjevardian holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Economicsfrom UCLA and a Juris Doctorate degree from Hastings College of Law. She is fluent in French, Farsi and Spanish.

National Leadership Council

Vinoda Basnayake

Johnnie Giles

Christine Harada

Dr. Zia Khan

Ambassador Gary F. Locke

Honorable Christopher P. Lu

Rocio Nuyda

Maulik Pancholy

Kal Penn

Sanjita Pradhan

Dr. Sabala Mandava Rao

Nick Rathod

Sonal R. Shah

Hari Sharma

Sumaiya Ahmed Sheikh

Honorable Tina M. Tchen

Ambassador Vinai K. Thummalapally

Dr. Mai Khanh Tran

Monika Kalra Varma

Ambassador Richard R. Verma

Nithi Vivatrat

Francey Lim Youngberg