Maria Cardona

A seasoned public policy advocate and political strategist, Maria Cardona has more than two decades of experience in the government, politics, public relations and community affairs arenas. She serves as Co-Chair of inSPIRE STEM USA, a coalition working to address America’s high-skilled jobs crisis and to strengthen the U.S. STEM education pipeline. Recognized among the most influential Latinos in the country, Cardona is a Principal at the Dewey Square Group, leading the Multicultural and Public Affairs practices. Cardona founded DSG’s Latino Strategies practice, “Latinovations,” and is a respected advocate on Latino issues. Cardona is a national political commentator, and is currently a CNN and CNN en Español political contributor, and has appeared frequently on MSNBC, FOX, Univision and Telemundo.

Cardona served as a Senior Advisor and spokesperson to the Hillary Clinton for President Campaign during the 2008 Democratic primary election, serving on the campaign’s Hispanic outreach team. During the 2008 and 2012 general election, she was a key surrogate for the Obama for America election campaign. Previously, Cardona led the New Democrat Network’s (NDN) outreach initiative with Hispanics nationwide as a senior vice president. Her government and political background includes service as director of communications for the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and five years at the Department of Commerce, first as Deputy Press Secretary and later as Press Secretary. During her time at the Commerce Department, she acted as lead communications strategist for the passage of NAFTA in 1993. She also served as communications director for the Democratic National Committee from 2001 to 2003.