María Teresa Kumar is the co-founder and President of Voto Latino Foundation, a non-profit, non-partisan 501(c)(3) organization, and its sister 501(c)(4) advocacy organization, Voto Latino. Voto Latino Foundation and Voto Latino are the largest Latino voter registration and Latino youth advocacy organizations in the country, respectively. Together, Voto Latino Foundation and Voto Latino, jointly known as Voto Latino, have registered over 1.4 million Americans in key battleground states since 2004, 79% of whom went on to vote.

Latinos are the fastest-growing demographic in the United States, and Voto Latino’s work has directly led to a substantial expansion of the Latino electorate in key states like Arizona and Nevada. Voto Latino has pioneered the use of technology, social media, and influencers to effectively register voters and counter disinformation at an unprecedented scale. Voto Latino reaches over 6 million Americans each month and has spent more than $100 million to ensure all Americans can participate in our democracy.

For this work, Fast Company named María Teresa one of the 100 Most Creative Minds, and the Analyst Institute recognized Voto Latino with an Expy Award for expanding the field of voter registration.

A sought-after political leader and strategist, María Teresa advised President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, and she currently serves on the National Task Force on Election Crises and the Brookings Institution’s Working Group on Universal Voting. She is chair of the Latino Anti-Disinformation Lab.

María Teresa is also an Emmy-nominated analyst for MSNBC and serves on the boards of Steve Madden, Emily’s List, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Additionally, she is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. She has been named among Bloomberg’s 100 Influential Latinos, Washingtonian Magazine’s 100 Top Political Influencers, and Elle’s 10 Influential Women in Washington. The Hispanic Heritage Foundation, Hispanic Executive Magazine, Latino Leaders Magazine, and Hispanic Business have all honored María Teresa.

Raised in Sonoma, California, María Teresa lives in Washington, DC, with her husband, Raj Kumar, and their two children. She is a first-generation graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the University of California, Davis.