Ai-jen Poo is a next-generation labor leader, award-winning organizer, author, and a leading voice in the women’s movement. She is the President of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, Executive Director of Caring Across Generations, Senior Advisor to Care in Action, Co-Founder of SuperMajority and Trustee of the Ford Foundation. Ai-jen is a nationally recognized expert on caregiving and author of the book The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America. Together with Alicia Garza, Ai-jen co-hosts the podcast, Sunstorm
Ai-jen Poo is the co-founder and President of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, a non-profit organization working to bring dignity and fairness to the growing numbers of workers who care and clean in our homes. In 15 short years, NDWA has grown to more than 70 affiliate organizations and chapters and nearly 400,000 members.
Under Ai-jen’s leadership, NDWA has led successful campaigns to pass Domestic Worker Bills of Rights in 11 states and four cities. These bills have extended common workplace rights and protections to domestic workers for the first time, including paid overtime, safe and healthy working conditions, and freedom from sexual harassment. Because there still are many states where domestic workers have very limited or nonexistent protections, Ai-jen and dedicated workers and advocates are now working to pass the National Domestic Workers Bill of Rights to address the exclusions of the past and bring us closer to a future where all work is dignified work, and every job in America is a good job.
In 2011, Ai-jen launched Caring Across Generations, an organization dedicated to changing the way we value and support caregiving in our culture and policy. Catalyzing groundbreaking policy changes including the nation’s first family caregiver benefit in Hawaii and the first long-term care social insurance fund in Washington State, the organization has helped to bring together a growing coalition of advocates for child care, paid leave and aging and disability care, and workforce organizations, to accelerate care systems change. In 2015, she released her widely acclaimed book, The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America, making the case for access to care for all families. Ai-jen continues to advocate for transformational investments in our care infrastructure.
Ai-jen is also a leading voice in the women’s movement. In collaboration with Tarana Burke, Fatima Goss Graves, and Monica Ramirez, she has been a critical voice in the movement for gender equity and justice. In 2019, along with Ceclie Richards and Alicia Garza, Ai-jen’ co-founded SuperMajority, a new home for women’s activism dedicated to training and mobilizing a multiracial, intergenerational community to fight for gender equity together. She also serves as a Senior Advisor to Care in Action, a nonpartisan group dedicated to fighting for a civic voice for millions of women of color, in the United States.
Recognized among Fortune’s 50 World’s Greatest Leaders and Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the World, Ai-jen has also been the recipient of countless awards, including a 2014 MacArthur “Genius” Grant. She has been a featured speaker at TEDWomen, Aspen Ideas Festival, Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, Skoll World Forum, and the Obama Foundation Inaugural Summit. Her writing has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, Maire Claire, Glamour, Cosmopolitan and CNN.com, among others.
