About the Author

Drew Altizer Photography

Attorney, author, and activist Christine Pelosi has a lifetime of grassroots organizing and public policy experience. She conducts leadership boot camps based on her book Campaign Boot Camp: Basic Training for Future Leaders (2007), which emerged from her years of grassroots activism and service with the AFSCME PEOPLE/New House PAC Congressional Candidates Boot Camp, which worked with approximately 100 challengers from 2006 to 2010, 26 of whom were elected to Congress.

Her second book, Campaign Boot Camp 2.0 (2012), draws from her trainings with candidates, volunteers, and NGO leaders in over thirty states and three countries, her classroom experience teaching Public Service Leadership Boot Camp for UC Extension in San Francisco, and her frequent blogging at the Huffington Post and POLITICO’s Arena. It details the role of social media, the Web, and technology in politics and explores the unique leadership challenges for women candidates.

Christine holds a JD from the University of California Hastings College of the Law and a BSFS from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. She has served as executive director of the CA Democratic Party, deputy city attorney and assistant district attorney for the City of San Francisco, HUD special counsel in the Clinton-Gore administration, and chief of staff to U.S. Congressman John F. Tierney. Christine chairs the California Democratic Party Women’s Caucus, led the California Democratic Party Platform Committee for thirteen years, has been elected four times to the Democratic National Committee, where she cofounded the DNC Veterans and Military Families Council and serves as a vice chair, and serves on the Stakeholder Board of the Young Democrats of America.

An avid baseball fan, she lives within walking distance of her beloved World Champion San Francisco Giants and serves on the Giants Community Fund board of directors. She is married to filmmaker Peter Kaufman; their daughter Isabella was born in 2009.