Connie Harriman-Whitfield
Senior Advisor, Presidential Initiatives
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Michelle Riley/The HSUS
Connie Harriman-Whitfield develops initiatives in the areas of outreach, policy, and legislation for HSUS President and CEO Wayne Pacelle.
Appointed by President George H.W. Bush as Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks for the Department of Interior, she oversaw both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service. As Assistant Secretary, Harriman-Whitfield played a key role in the American and worldwide bans on the trade in elephant ivory.
She was subsequently appointed director at the U.S. Export-Import Bank of the United States. Previously, she had served as associate solicitor at the Department of Interior and at the Department of Justice. She was also a private-practice attorney in Los Angeles.
Harriman-Whitfield is a former vice chair of the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority and a former chair of the Kentucky Equine Drug Research Council. In those capacities, she worked to strengthen Kentucky's laws on drugs in horse racing, successfully limiting race-day medications that can be administered to thoroughbreds, standardbreds and quarter horses, and setting strict penalties for those who violate the law.
A long-time volunteer in animal protection work, Harriman-Whitfield also serves on the board of the Stephen Decatur House and on the Women's Committee of the Washington National Opera.
A Phi Beta Kappa and cum laude graduate of Stanford University, Harriman-Whitfield holds bachelor's and master's degrees from Stanford University and a Juris Doctorate degree from the University of California at Los Angeles.
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