The liberal-leaning think tank Demos announced today that Heather McGhee will take over as the new president starting on March 10, 2014.
She will be replacing current president Miles Rapoport, who is leaving to head the public interest group Common Cause. Rapoport led Demos for 13 years.
Ms. McGhee is currently the Vice President for Policy & Outreach at Demos, which is based in New York.
Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post on women running think tanks. Last year, Foreign Policy noted that 42 of the top 50 think tanks in the US are run by men.
Neera Tanden, who leads one of the top 50 US think tanks (Center for American Progress), congratulated Heather McGhee on Twitter. Said Tanden: "Proud to have another sister run a think tank & especially one so devoted to justice."
A variety of other people praised the announcement, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sen. Jeff Merkley (R-OR), President of Economic Policy Institute (EPI) Lawrence Mishel, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, International President of SEIU Mary Kay Henry, and MSNBC host Chris Hayes.
Demos, founded in 2000, was just ranked by the annual University of Pennsylvania think tank rankings as the 53rd best think tank in the US.
