Researching Erica Payne

She is the founder of the Agenda Project, a New York‐based hub of public policy discussion and strategy debate for progressive activists from business, media, philanthropy, government, and non‐profit. The Agenda Project's monthly newsletter Practical Progress is read by 10,000 political and philanthropic leaders and is a trusted source of insight on policy and politics.

Before joining the Agenda Project full‐time in 2010, Payne led the Tesseract Group, a boutique consulting firm that provided strategy and communications advice to select public policy and political organizations. In that role, Payne served as a senior strategist for the Roosevelt Institute to envision and build a new public policy think tank for economic and finance sector policy. At the Roosevelt Institute, Payne co‐edited "Make Markets Be Markets: Restoring the Integrity of the US Financial Markets" and produced a major conference by the same name that included George Soros, Elizabeth Warren, Simon Johnson, Lynn Turner and other progressive advocates. Other Tesseract clients included: the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the Howard Gilman Foundation, and the Center for Independent Media among others.

Prior to founding the Agenda Project and the Tesseract Group, Payne co‐founded the Democracy Alliance, a donor collaborative whose partners have invested over $100 million in progressive organizations.

Her early career included serving as Deputy National Finance Director for the Democratic National Committee during the 1996 presidential re‐election campaign and as a consultant to a number of campaigns and political organizations. In addition to her public sector work, Payne has held senior marketing positions in the private sector.

She is on the Board of Advisors of the Public Diplomacy Collaborative at the Kennedy School at Harvard University. She is also on the Board of Advisors of Health Care for American Now. Payne has a MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania (2000) and a BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1991).