Indian American Aditi Hardikar Named Deputy Chief of Staff at the Treasury Department

A prominent lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights activist, she was the associate director in the White House Office of Public Engagement during the second term of the Obama-Biden administration.

Indian American Aditi Hardikar will assume the role of deputy chief of staff at the Treasury Department this April, Politico’s Morning Money reported. She will replace outgoing deputy chief of staff Alfred Johnson. Hardikar has served as a senior adviser to Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo since joining the department in January 2021. Before that she worked as the Leadership and Training Lead for the Biden-Harris Presidential Transition.

A prominent lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights activist, she was the associate director in the White House Office of Public Engagement during the second term of the Obama-Biden Administration. In that role, she served as the primary liaison to the LGBTQ and AAPI communities for issues including economic opportunity, health care, transgender rights, data collection, and youth homelessness. She had replaced Gautam Raghavan who had joined the Gill Foundation. Currently, Raghavan is head of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel (PPO).

She spent three years at the Obama Foundation, first as chief of staff with a focus on strategic planning and organizational growth, and then as the acting vice president for Operations on the development team, overseeing data and analytics, communications, and research.

Hardikar has also served as the LGBT Finance Director for the Presidential Inaugural Committee in 2013, and the Deputy Director of LGBT Voter Outreach and LGBT Finance for the 2012 Obama-Biden President Campaign. Before that, she worked for the Center for American Progress in Washington. She also served as a White House intern in the Office of Public Engagement, where she worked on LGBT issues. She also worked as the Coalitions Finance Director for the Clinton-Kaine presidential campaign and helped with AAPI fundraising and strategy at the Democratic National Committee.