Brad Jenkins

Marina Jenkins and Brad Jenkins

Brad Jenkins is President of the AAPI Victory Fund, which "is focused on mobilizing Asian American and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) eligible voters and moving them to the ballot box." Brad Jenkins is founder and CEO of Enfranchisement Productions. He worked in Obama’s administration after serving as the Deputy Director of Special Projects for Obama's election campaign, and he worked for Bernie Sanders campaign in 2016.

Brad Jenkins is married to Marina Jenkins.

Biography

Verbatim from Brad Jenkins' personal website:

Brad Jenkins, CEO and Founder of the award-winning Enfranchisement Productions

Before joining Will Ferrell’s Funny Or Die as Managing Director and Executive Producer, Jenkins spent four years serving as President Obama’s Associate Director in The White House Office of Public Engagement. From The White House, Jenkins brought together creative executives, thought leaders, and some of the world’s biggest stars to advance the President’s agenda—culminating in the Emmy-award winning “Between Two Ferns” interview on the Affordable Care Act. Jenkins recounts this story in depth in West Wingers: Stories from the Dream Chasers, Change Makers, and Hope Creators Inside the Obama White House, a collection of personal stories by Obama Administration staffers. At Funny Or Die and Enfranchisement Productions, Jenkins produced over 50 social impact campaigns with organizations, foundations, PACs, IEs, and committees. Most notably, Jenkins produced history-making campaigns for the start-up non-profit Rise which was founded by Nobel Peace Prize Nominee, Amanda Nguyen. For his award-winning work, Brad was featured on CNN’s History of Comedy and he has won numerous awards including a Grand Clio, Halo Award for CSR, the Humanitarian of The Year from the Venice Family Clinic, Shorty Awards, Webby Awards, and the Spirit of Innovation Award from the Asian American Victory Fund. Jenkins also served on the AAPI Board of Advisors for the Bernie Sanders campaign in 2016.

In 2008, Jenkins served as the Deputy Director of Special Projects for President Obama’s election campaign, specializing in the intersection of youth media and grassroots engagement helping Obama turn out one of the largest youth vote totals in history. His campaign work was documented in MSNBC’s “Story Of Cool” - executive-produced by LL Cool J. Prior to joining the White House, Jenkins was the founding Vice President of Business Forward, a non-profit that brings entrepreneurs into the policymaking process. Before the 2008 campaign, Jenkins worked on the trading desk for the asset management firm, Farallon Capital in San Francisco, CA. A proud New Jersey native, Brad graduated from the University of Virginia and now resides in Washington, D.C. where he spends most of his spare time doing living room comedy sets for his 5-year old daughter, Sadie and 3-year old son, Oscar. Brad appears on CNN, MSNBC, NPR, CNBC, and is a board member of the Georgetown University Institute of Politics and Public Service.

Verbatim from AAPI Victory Fund announcement:

Today, the AAPI Victory Fund announced that Brad Jenkins has been appointed as the organization’s President & Chief Executive Officer.

Jenkins, who is currently serving as AAPI Victory Fund’s acting president, previously served as Managing Director of Funny or Die and Associate Director in the White House Office of Public Engagement during the Obama Administration. He is the Founder/CEO of Enfranchisement Productions where he has led award-winning campaigns for organizations such as The Asian American Foundation, Common’s Imagine Justice, Eric Holder and Barack Obama’s All On The Line, Rise, and We Are Sikhs. Jenkins currently serves on the Board of Directors for The Second City with Stephen Colbert, RUN AAPI (where he is Co-Founder), and Voters of Tomorrow.

AAPI Victory Fund Chairman Shekar Narasimhan and Co-founder Bel Leong-Hong issued the following statement:

“The AAPI Victory Fund Board is thrilled to welcome Brad Jenkins as the organization’s President & CEO. After an extensive national candidate search, the Board came to a unanimous decision to appoint Brad to the role.

“As the leader of many groundbreaking multi-media campaigns and a veteran campaign alum, Brad has the experience and tenacity to lead our organization through some of the most contentious times in our nation’s history. His personal story combined with his strong roots in the AAPI community give us full confidence that his leadership will significantly grow AAPI participation in the upcoming elections and increase our representation at all levels of government.”

AAPI Victory Fund President & CEO Brad Jenkins issued the following statement:

“I am honored to lead the AAPI Victory Fund at this urgent moment for Asian American and Pacific Islanders. We are witnessing our community come together like never before to #StopAsianHate and beat back racism, violence, and discrimination. AAPI voters had a record-breaking surge in turnout in 2020 with little investment and focus from Democratic institutions.

“The AAPI Victory Fund will be making historic investments to mobilize our community ahead of the 2022 midterms. We will be leading the charge on AAPI voter file data improvements and disaggregation, engaging our communities where they are and in-language, and building a national Asian American movement for voting. We are proud to fight for the votes of the fastest growing demographic in the United States and to help progressive AAPI candidates win up and down the ballot.

“We also know that we can’t do this work alone. So, I am excited to deepen our partnership with the Collective PAC and the Latino Victory Fund to ensure that we are building multiracial coalitions to win as many key elections as possible. This won’t be an easy journey, but I am confident that our AAPI community will rise to the challenge yet again and have a historic impact in winning key elections across the country.

“I want to thank Shekar, Bel and the Victory Fund Board for their vote of confidence, and look forward to working with them to hold the Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and increase our majority in the U.S. Senate, while building the infrastructure that makes our community stronger in all fifty states.”

Calling out 'Communist China' is 'Sinophobic' and 'Racist'

Brad Jenkins was quoted by Kimmy Yam at ABC News criticizing comments made by Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio as "rife with sinophobic rhetoric". Rep. Tim Ryan blamed China for the loss of American jobs in a re-election advertisement. Rep. Grace Meng also called on Ryan to take down the ad, saying it is 'essentially shifting blame away from American corporations' anti-worker policies and putting a target on the backs of #AAPIs." "Creating a villainous country and claiming that that’s the reason why Ohio has lost manufacturing jobs — not only is that bad policy, it’s racist," Brad Jenkins was quoted as saying.

Tim Ryan with Brad Jenkins

Ironically, Tim Ryan was interviewed by Brad Jenkins in July, 2019.

Fired Up With Brad Jenkins

Brad Jenkins has hosted a defunct podcast called "Fired Up With Brad Jenkins". He interviewed Pete Buttigieg, Cory Booker, Tom Steyer, Julian Castro, Questlove, Randall Park, Tulsi Gabbard, Sara Hurwitz, Brittany Shepperd, T.I., Marina Jenkins, Patrick Gaspard, Morgan Harper, Amanda Nguyen, Chloe Bennet, Nadya Okamoto, Gurwin Singh Ahuja, Ted Lieu, Sophia Chang, Ally Maki & Travis Atreo, Alex Lasry and Tim Ryan.

Praises Wife for becoming 'Litigation Director' National Democratic Redistricting Committee'

Brad Jenkins tweets about his wife Marina Jenkins Nov 27 2019

Brad Jenkins praised his wife Marina Jenkins in a tweet dated November 27, 2019 for becoming "Litigation Director for AG Eric Holder & Barack Obama’s National Democratic Redistricting Committee".

"YES!! The LEGEND Marina Jenkins makes her Fired Up debut!!! 🙌🏽🇺🇸🖤 MJ is democracy’s hero as Litigation Director for AG Eric Holder & Barack Obama’s National Democratic Redistricting Committee. And, she is “MY WIFE!” -Borat voice. 😂 We talk GERRYMANDERING http://FiredUpShow.net"