US President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday appointed two more Indian-Americans to top positions in his administration. Biden’s long-time associate Vinay Reddy was named his speechwriter while Gautam Raghavan was named as Deputy Director of the Office of Presidential Personnel.
Reddy grew up in Dayton, Ohio, the middle of three sons in an immigrant family and is a product of Ohio public schools from kindergarten to Miami University to The Ohio State University College of Law. He currently lives in New York with his wife and their two daughters.
He serves as the speechwriter for the Biden-Harris Transition team and was also a senior advisor and speechwriter for the Biden-Harris campaign during the election. He also previously served as chief speechwriter when Biden was vice-president during the second term of the Obama administration. He has also worked as Vice President of Strategic Communications at the National Basketball Association (NBA).
Raghavan is a first generation immigrant, who was born in India, raised in Seattle, and graduated from Stanford University. He lives in Washington, DC with his husband and their daughter.
He is currently the Deputy Head of Presidential Appointments in the Biden-Harris Transition team. Before this he had served as Chief of Staff to Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal.
He has in the past been an advisor to the Biden Foundation andVice President of Policy for the Gill Foundation – one of the oldest and largest private foundations dedicated to the cause of LGBTQ equality.
Reddy and Raghavan were appointed along with four other members of the new administration – Anne Filipic as Director of Management and Administration, Ryan Montoya as Director of Scheduling and Advance, Bruce Reed as Deputy Chief of Staff, and Elizabeth Wilkins as Senior Advisor to the Chief of Staff.