In the first episode of STAFFER, we are joined by Symone Sanders. Symone is an absolute rock star staffer, serving as the youngest national press secretary for Senator Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign at the age of 25. She is currently a Senior Adviser to Vice President Joe Biden's 2020 Presidential Campaign. After graduating Creighton University, Symone worked for a Democratic political consultant, Little Smith Strategies, in Nebraska exposing her to local campaigns. She then went to work for Nebraska governor Chuck Hassebrook as his Deputy Communications Director before moving to Washington D.C. in 2014. In DC, she worked as Communications Director for Delegate Michael Futrell, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates.
In June of 2016, Symone left the Sanders's campaign to pursue other opportunities. In an article by Splinter News (formerly Fusion Magazine), Symone was touted as “one of the most prominent women of color and young people in presidential politics.” In October 2016, she was hired to be a Democratic strategist and political commentator by CNN and in April 2019, Symone joined the Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign as a Senior Advisor.
Outside of politics, Symone is the former chair of the Coalition of Juvenile Justice Emerging Leaders Committee and a former member of the Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice, where she worked to raise the profile of young voices in the fight for juvenile justice reform and bring millennial perspectives to policy conversations. Symone served in 2018 as a resident fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics at the Kennedy school, where she noted she first thought of herself as a teacher and writer, and in 2019 at the University of Southern California’s Center for the Political Future.
Symone is currently the principal of the 360 Group LLC, where she provides strategic communications guidance to organizations, businesses, individuals, campaigns, and candidates and helps clients find sound solutions to tough political and social problems. Learn more about Symone Sanders.
