Indian American Preeta Bansal honored with APAICS Stewardship Award

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Indian American Preeta Bansal was honored with the annual Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (APAICS) Stewardship Award at the organization’s 24th annual Awards Gala on Tuesday, May 15.

The APAICS Stewardship Award is presented annually to Asian Americans and Pacific Islander individuals who are leaders within their communities.

“I’m honored to present the APAICS Stewardship Award to Solicitor General Preeta Bansal for her leadership in public service, and for her efforts to empower communities. Asian Pacific American Heritage Month is a time to honor and celebrate the achievements of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI). Tonight, we recognize and celebrate Preeta for her immense contributions, and for her service and leadership to our community and the nation,” US Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY) said as she presented the award to Bansal.

Bansal has served as a General Counsel and Senior Policy Advisor to the federal Office of Management and Budget from 2009 until 2011.

Prior to serving in the Obama administration, Bansal served as a law partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and as the Solicitor General of the State of New York during Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s first term. She also has been a member and past chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)

Bansal is currently the CEO of Social Emergence Corporation and she also teaches at the MIT Media Lab, where she is a Senior Advisor for Social Machines.

Bansal is originally from Nebraska, she received an A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1986 and a J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1989.

She also served as a Supervising Editor of the Harvard Law Review and after graduating from Harvard Law School, she clerked for Chief Judge James L. Oakes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1989 to 1990 and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens from 1990 to 1991.

After running her own private practice in Washington D.C., Bansal worked in the Clinton Administration from 1993 to 1996 as a Counselor in the U.S. Department of Justice and as a White House Special Counsel.

Then in 1999, she was recruited to serve in the office of New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer as the Solicitor General of the State of New York after which Bansal was a Visiting Fellow at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Bansal is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute and a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

She received the National Organization of Women’s “Woman of Power and Influence Award” in 2006 and was named one of the “50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America” by the National Law Journal in its inaugural list in 2008.

In 2006, she was a co-chair for then-Attorney General-Elect Andrew Cuomo’s transition team, and previously served as a board member of the Clinton Global Initiative, the National Women’s Law Center and the New York City Bar Justice Center, and as a Commissioner on Mayor Bloomberg’s Election Modernization Task Force.