Megan Beyer

Megan was appointed by President Barack Obama to be the Executive Director of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. She led the first official U.S. Cultural Delegation to Cuba, which included directors of four U.S. cultural agencies and prominent artists, including Usher, Joshua Bell, Smokey Robinson, and Dave Matthews. The mission resulted in the first government-to-government public collaborations following President Obama’s historic visit to Cuba.

 Beyer is a journalist, activist, and life-long advocate of women’s rights and gender issues. In 2010, she founded the bilateral Swiss-U.S. project, Sister Republics, which accelerates private market drivers to break the glass ceiling. As the Chair of Sister Republics, Megan organized international conferences–which brought women together to promote gender certification and gender lens investing. Upon returning to the U.S. in 2013, Megan was the External Relations representative for the Swiss-based EDGE Gender Certification, a company that certifies companies achieving a global standard of gender certification.

Megan graduated magna cum laude from the University of Richmond, and worked as a reporter covering education and politics for various local and national television news programs. She has since represented the presidential campaigns of President Barack Obama, Senator John Kerry, and Governor Howard Dean on several different national media outlets. She has served on countless national, state and local boards in the U.S. including Finance Chairman of the Virginia Community Colleges System, Mid-Atlantic Finance Chair for Women for Obama in 2008, and a member of the Obama for America Finance Committee in 2008 and 2012. She is has been a regular contributor to newspapers in Switzerland and the U.S., and her essays are found on Huffington Post. Megan is a frequent panelist on PBS' To the Contrary.

Currently Megan consults with Civic Nation, a non-profit advancing civic engagement, and the American Film Institute. As an advisor to Civic Nation, she is involved with several former Obama White House programs including United State of Women, Next Up, and Reach Higher.