“Everyone comes from a different ideological perspective, and we should use our way of thinking and our particular relationships to make the case for equality.” ~Ken Mehlman
Ken Mehlman received his undergraduate degree from Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1988 and a J.D from Harvard Law School in 1991. He then went on to practice environmental law at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld while maintaining an active political presence. He assisted in multiple state political campaigns as well as two political campaigns in 1992 and 1996.
Mehlman rose to fame as the campaign manager for President George W. Bush’s 2004 presidential campaign, and was noted for his efforts to reach out to African American communities to encourage voter turnout. After Bush was elected he served as director of the White House Office of Political Affairs and was selected as head of the Republican National Committee in 2005.
In 2010, Ken Mehlman came out as gay to the general public and announced that he would use his political skills to advocate for same-sex marriage. He founded a pro-LGBT research organization in 2012 called Project Right Side, and was instrumental in organizing support for a Supreme Court amicus brief in the case to overturn the Defense of Marriage Act. He continues to make regular public speaking appearances to discuss LGBT issues. He spoke at Harvard’s first student-run LGBT conference and has several media appearances encouraging the acceptance of same-sex marriage from a conservative standpoint.
Currently Ken Mehlman works at Kohlberg, Kravis Roberts (KKR) as the Head of Public Affairs, and is responsible for company interaction with the public and the media. KKR is a successful private equity companies worth over $40 billion in assets and well known for its leveraged buyout strategies. He was also named the board chairman of the Private Equity Growth Capital Council, a research and lobbying organization dedicated to the private equity industry.
Throughout his career, Ken Mehlman has consistently made great strides in both finance and politics and continues to leverage his unique position as a gay, prominent Republican to spread the word of equality. We expect to see more of him as same sex marriage continues to gain legal traction in the United States.
In 2017, Ken Mehlman was named chair of the policy advisory board of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a nonprofit organization that focuses on education, science, and curing disease.
