Aisha Moodie-Mills Becomes First Black Woman to Head the Victory Fund

Aisha Moodie-Mills is the new president and CEO of the Victory Fund and Institute, a leading LGBT political organization, and the first black woman hold the position. A mainstay on MSNBC’s circle of commentators, she was previously a Senior Fellow and Director of the FIRE Initiative at the Center for American Progress, where she explored the intersections of race, class and sexuality.

According to BuzzFeed’s Chris Geidner, Moodie-Mills’ “presence as a black woman stands in contrast to the predominantly white and male makeup of these groups.”

In 2009, Moodie-Mills grew her LGBT grassroots organizational skills pushing for marriage equality legislation in the DC Council. From there she joined the Center for American Progress in 2010. In her new position, Moodie-Mills will manage 18 employees and a budget of $4 million. She’ll also push to “support and train out LGBT people to run for office and staff political jobs”—like a kindred spirit to Emily’s List, which does the same sort of work for women in politics. From BuzzFeed:

“Victory has been thinking about this, certainly before me, and I think I am a manifestation of the forward-thinking of the organization, and that’s a great legacy to be able to build upon,” she said. “I was impressed that they, as a … not really diverse group — there are only like a handful of women and everyone there is white, so they’re not a very diverse group — how they came to it themselves that they need to do something different and that they needed to think much longer into the future — a 20-year plan — and that this 20-year plan needs to reach people that they’ve never reached before.”

Moodie-Mills’ wife is Danielle, who tweeted the announcement adorably on Thursday.