Obama names Indian-American Shamina Singh to key post

President Barack Obama has named yet another Indian-American as member of the Board of Directors of the Corporation for National and Community Service for a term expiring in October 2019.

The nomination of Shamina Singh, executive director of the MasterCard Centre for Inclusive Growth since December 2013, has been sent to the Senate, according to a White House announcement on Monday.

She joined MasterCard in 2013 as the global director for government services and solutions where she expanded MasterCard's business capabilities to digitise social subsidy programmes in over 40 countries.

Prior to joining MasterCard, Shamina led government and public affairs for Nike and spent five years with Citigroup's Global Community Development Group.

Over the course of 15 years in the public sector, she held senior positions within the Clinton Administration and the US House of Representatives.

She is a Young Global Leader and Member of the Global Agenda Council on India with the World Economic Forum, a Henry Crown Fellow with the Aspen Institute and served on the Presidential Advisory Commission on Military Leadership Diversity.

Shamina has a graduate degree in public policy from the Lyndon B. Johnson School for Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin, and has completed executive programmes at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Yale's Jackson Institute for Diplomacy and the India School of Business.

In 2003, she served as a senior advisor to US House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and in 2002 was the deputy campaign manager for the Ron Kirk for US Senate campaign.

Shamina Singh was executive director for the President's Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders from 1999 to 2001.