Emily Cherniack
Founder and Executive Director
Emily’s path to politics came when her boss and mentor, Alan Khazei, decided to run for the US Senate in 2009. Khazei asked Emily to become his Deputy Campaign Manager and, although he was defeated, Emily learned a great deal from his campaign and the power of political leaders who chose to serve country before self.
This experience led Emily to conclude that our current system for recruiting political talent is broken. The current talent pipeline is intentionally exclusive, and has significant barriers that prevent transformational leaders from successfully running for office; the only way to change that is to change the pipeline. New Politics was founded in 2013 to address exactly that. Since New Politics was founded, the organization has recruited and supported over 1,000 candidates for political office and has trained several thousand servant leaders to engage in politics via campaigns, policy work, and serving in government. In 2018, Emily was named to the Politico 50 as one of the 50 "thinkers, doers, and dreamers driving politics."
Emily graduated from George Washington University with a Bachelor's Degree in Criminal Justice and Psychology and a Masters Degree in Education Policy. She served in an AmeriCorps program called City Year where she worked with students in Boston Public Schools to get back on track. She lives in the greater Boston area with her husband, two toddler boys, and their pitbull Ragnar.