Gautam Raghavan (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Gautam Raghavan directed Office of Presidential Personnel during Biden-Harris administration.
D.C. Mayor-elect Janeese Lewis George has named Gautam Raghavan, an openly gay former White House official under the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden as one of five co-chairs for her mayoral transition team.
On the day following the Nov. 3 D.C. general election, in which Lewis George won election as mayor by a wide margin, she announced her transition team co-chairs and her transition director, including Raghavan, who served, among other roles, as director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel under the Biden-Harris administration.
“My transition team is rooted in D.C. and will work tirelessly to ensure we have a successful transition,” Lewis George said in a Nov. 4 statement. “They also understand the inner workings of government and will help me bring talented individuals who are ready to execute our plans to make D.C. safer, more affordable, and accountable to residents in all eight wards,” the statement says.
In addition to Raghavan, the other transition team co-chairs named by Lewis George include Aaron Jenkins, a former Obama administration official; Beatriz “BB” Otero, who served as deputy mayor for Health and Human Services under former D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray; Greg Akerman, president of the Baltimore-D.C. Metro Building Trades Council; and Kimberly Perry, director of D.C. Action, a nonprofit organization focused on youth and families.
The announcement says the transition team will be directed by Jennifer Levy, a Lewis Geroge campaign advisor and former deputy attorney general in the office of the New York State Attorney General.
At a news conference announcing her transition team on Wednesday, Lewis Geroge mentioned Raghavan and his husband.
Gautam worked in the Biden-Harris administration as Assistant to the President & Director of the White House Office of Presidential Personnel from Jan. 2022 to Jan. 2025. It shows he served as Deputy Director of Presidential Personnel from Jan. 2021, when Biden first took office, to Jan. 2022.
He worked in the Obama administration as Associate Director of Public Engagement in the Executive Office of the President from Oct. 2011 to Sept. 2014, where, among other things, he served as liaison to both the LGBT and Asian American and Pacific Islander American communities.
His LinkedIn page shows he currently works as a partner with the global executive talent search firm True Search as the Washington, D.C. representative for its Nonprofit & Social Impact Practice.
“I love Washington, D.C,” he states on his LinkedIn page. “More than two decades ago I came here to change the world – and along the way, I found my community, met my husband, and started a family.”
He adds, “That’s why I’m so honored to serve as a Transition Co-Chair for our dynamic and brilliant new Mayor-elect Janeese Lewis George, working closely with my fellow Co-Chairs.”
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