Kamala Harris names Tina Flournoy as her chief of staff

Tina Flournoy, who is currently serving as chief of staff to former US President Bill Clinton, has been chosen to be Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ chief of staff, according to a source.

Flournoy will join at least two other women of colour holding senior roles in Harris’ office - Symone Sanders, chief spokesperson for the vice-president-elect, and Ashley Etienne, Harris’ communications director, reported CNN.

Before her current role with Clinton, Flournoy served as an assistant to Clinton for public policy at the American Federation of Teachers, a union representing 1.7 million members, according to her Georgetown Univerity biography. She led the group’s work in areas including its political, mobilization, and human rights and community outreach departments.

According to CNN, Flournoy has served in several roles in the Democratic Party, including senior adviser to then-Democratic National Convention Chairman Howard Dean in 2005. She was the traveling chief of staff to 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Joseph Lieberman, finance director for then-Vice President Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign and deputy campaign manager in the 1992 Clinton and Gore Presidential Transition Office and in the White House Office of Presidential Personnel.

Last month, US President-elect Joe Biden has appointed an all-female White House communications team, choosing former Barack Obama administration’s State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki as his White House press secretary, informed Biden-Harris’s transition team made the announcement.

Biden was projected as the winner of the Presidential elections in the US ever since he clinched the state of Pennsylvania to take him past the required 270 electoral college vote mark, defeating incumbent President Donald Trump.