Alexis Herman

In 2010, Herman was appointed to the board of the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, a charitable organization founded by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush to aid Haiti following a magnitude 7.0 Mw earthquake in January of that year. Herman has also been involved with civic groups including the National Urban League and the National Epilepsy Foundation. She has been awarded more than 20 honorary doctorate degrees from academic institutions.

Herman served as co-chair of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's transition team during the 2004 presidential election. In 2005, Howard Dean, serving as Democratic National Committee Chairman, appointed Herman and lawyer James Roosevelt, Jr. co-chairs of its Rules and Bylaws Committee. The position put Herman and Roosevelt at the center of a dispute between the campaigns of democratic primary candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton over whether to seat delegates from Michigan and Florida at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Herman endorsed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Democratic Party Presidential primaries and served as Deputy Parliamentarian at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

From 2001 to 2006, Herman was chairwoman of The Coca-Cola Company's Human Resources Task Force. The following year, Coca-Cola made her a director. Herman served on Toyota's Diversity Advisory Board. In 2006, the company appointed her to head a special task force to ensure the company's compliance with anti-discrimination standards following the resignation of Toyota North America's CEO, after being named the defendant in a sexual harassment lawsuit. Herman served on the boards of other major companies, including Cummins, MGM Resorts International, Entergy, Sodexo, and is the chairman and CEO of New Ventures, Inc.

Following the defeat of Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election, Herman remained active in Democratic politics, in addition to her participation in the private sector, serving on the boards of corporations such as Coca-Cola and Toyota.

Attorney General Janet Reno appointed Independent Council Ralph I. Lancaster Jr., in May 1998, to investigate Herman after businessman Laurent J. Yene alleged she accepted kickbacks while working at the White House. Reno was skeptical of Yene's allegations following a preliminary FBI investigation, but she believed the Independent Council law obligated her to appoint independent council where she could not affirm the claims were without merit. Following a twenty-three month investigation, Independent Council Lancaster concluded that Herman had broken no laws and cleared her of all wrongdoing. She was the fifth Clinton cabinet officer to be investigated by independent counsel, and the fourth cleared of all wrongdoing. The Independent Council investigations of the cabinet members cost $95 million and did not uncover any felonies, leading Congress to allow the Independent Counsel Act to expire in June 1999 without re-authorization.

Herman grew up in Mobile, Alabama. After college, she worked to improve employment opportunities for black laborers and women. She then joined the administration of Jimmy Carter, working as director of the Labor Department's Women's Bureau. She became active in the Democratic party, working in the campaigns of Jesse Jackson and then serving as chief of staff for the Democratic National Committee under Ronald H. Brown. Upon the election of Bill Clinton, she joined his cabinet in 1997.

As secretary, Herman supported the 1996 and 1997 raises to the minimum wage, increasing it by $0.90 to $5.15 per hour by September 1997. Herman argued the wage hike increased the buying power of workers. She later opposed a 1999 Republican supported plan to raise the minimum wage over three years, instead supporting a two-year time-table for an increase. Herman also opposed the legislation as it included tax cuts without offsets.

After Bill Clinton's victory in the 1992 Presidential election, Herman became deputy director of the Presidential Transition Office. Clinton then appointed her director of the White House Office of Public Liaison, where she was responsible for the administration's relations with interest groups. In that role, Herman repeatedly organized informal dinners to advance White House initiatives or assuage key groups. She earned the support of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Congressional Black Caucus as part of her outreach efforts. Herman also earned the respect of members of the business community as part of her effort to gain support for the Clinton Administration's trade deal, the North American Free Trade Agreement. Her time as director also included the death of Commerce Secretary, and Herman's former boss at the Democratic National Committee, Ronald Brown in a plane crash. As director, Herman made arrangements for public and private grieving following the death. The tragedy strengthened Herman's bond with Present Clinton, who like Herman had been close to Brown.

In 1981, at the end of the Carter administration, Herman left her job in the Labor Department and founded the consulting firm, A.M. Herman & Associates. Herman and the firm worked with corporations on a variety of marketing and management issues, including how to develop training programs, marketing strategies, and organizational strategies. She managed the convention team for Jesse Jackson in his 1984 and 1988 bids for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. Her role working for Jackson's campaign led Herman to serve as chief of staff to Democratic National Committee Chairman Ronald H. Brown, and later as vice chair of the 1992 Democratic National Convention.

Later, working at New York based consulting firm RTP, Herman led programs designed to provide apprenticeships for women in nontraditional jobs. At RTP, she met Ray Marshall. After Jimmy Carter won the Presidency in 1977, he and his incoming Labor Secretary Marshall asked Herman to be director of the Labor Department's Women's Bureau. At age 29, she was the youngest person to hold the position, which required her to work towards improving business opportunities for women. She worked to encourage corporations to hire more minority women, with companies like Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, and General Motors making increased diversity a priority in their hiring process.

Herman was Queen of Carnival for the Mobile Area Mardi Gras Association in 1974. Her father had served as King of Carnival in his youth.

After graduating high school, Herman attended Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin, and Spring Hill College in Mobile. She transferred to Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans, where she became an active member of the Gamma Alpha Chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology in 1969.

Alexis Margaret Herman (born July 16, 1947) is an American politician who served as the 23rd U.S. Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton. Herman was the first African-American to hold the position. Prior to serving as Secretary, she was Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement.