Maria Echaveste is the founder of the Nueva Vista Group, a consulting firm that works with nonprofit organizations, associations and corporations on a wide range of policy issues. Currently, she is also a lecturer at the University of California Berkeley’s Boalt Law School, teaching immigration law and policy, and a Senior Fellow of the Law School’s Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity. A graduate of Stanford University and the University of California’s Boalt School of Law, she has practiced law in the private and public sector. As Wage and Hour Administrator at the US Department of Labor from 1993-1997, she was responsible for enforcing the nation’s basic labor laws such as minimum wage, overtime and the family medical leave act. In 1997, during the second Clinton term, she joined the White House staff as Assistant to the President, including serving as Deputy Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton from 1998 to 2001. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Democratic National Committee, is a non-resident fellow at the Center for American Progress, and is a member of the Board of Directors for: People for the American Way, The American Prospect magazine, and CARE.