American attorney and author

Meenakshi Ashley Harris (born October 20, 1984) is an American lawyer, children's book author, producer, and founder of the Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign, which creates statement fashion to support charity. In June 2020, Harris released her first book from HarperCollins, en*led Kamala and Maya's Big Idea, which is based on the story of her mother, Maya Harris, and aunt, Kamala Harris, the 49th Vice President of the United States.

Contents

• 1 Early life and education
• 2 Career
  • 2.1 Phenomenal
  • 2.2 Children's books
  • 2.3 Political advising
  • 2.4 Other
• 3 Personal life
• 4 Bibliography
• 5 References
• 6 External links

Early life and education

Harris was born on October 20, 1984. Her mother, Maya Harris, is a lawyer and policy expert. Her aunt, Kamala Harris, is the Vice President of the United States. Her grandmother, Shyamala Gopalan, was an Indian-American cancer researcher and civil rights activist, and her grandfather, Donald Harris, is a Jamaican-American professor of economics at Stanford and a civil rights activist.

Harris received her bachelor's degree from Stanford University in 2006, and her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 2012. She graduated from Bishop O'Dowd High School in Oakland.

Career

Phenomenal

She founded "Phenomenal" in 2017, naming her fashion company for a 1978 Maya Angelou poem. It then branched out to include the Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign, founded in 2017 as an organization that brings awareness to social causes. The campaign covers a range of policy issues, including educational excellence and healthcare equity, criminal justice reform, gender parity in STEM, reproductive health, and political representation. Amb*adors for the campaign include Serena Williams, Jessica Alba, Mark Ruffalo, Tracee Ellis Ross, Viola Davis, Yara Shahidi, Janelle Monae, Sarah Silverman, Debbie Allen, Rosario Dawson, Van Jones, Lizzo, Cecile Richards, and more. In September 2018, Harris also coordinated a full-page ad in the New York Times with Alicia Garza, founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network, to demonstrate national support for Christine Blasey Ford and survivors of sexual *ault. Harris also operates Phenomenal Media for written content and Phenomenal Productions for videos and visual content. In December 2020, it was announced that she and Brad Jenkins would launch a production studio called Phenomenal Productions.

Children's books

In 2020, Harris released her first children's book from HarperCollins en*led Kamala and Maya's Big Idea, which is based on the real story of her mother, Maya Harris, and aunt Kamala Harris. On January 19, 2021, she released her second children's book, Ambitious Girl.

Political advising

During Kamala Harris's successful 2016 campaign for the U.S. Senate, Harris served as a senior advisor on policy and communications. From 2016 to 2017, Harris served as a commissioner on the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women.

Other

Previously, Harris also served as Head of Strategy & Leadership at Uber where her stepfather Tony West is Chief Legal Officer, and worked for international law firm Covington & Burling, Slack Technologies, and Facebook.

Personal life

Harris is married to Nikolas Ajagu. The couple has two daughters, Amara and Leela.

In December 2021 she disclosed that she got infected with COVID-19 even though she was fully vaccinated along with a booster shot.

Bibliography

• Kamala and Maya's Big Idea. HarperCollins. 2020. ISBN:9780062937407.
• Ambitious Girl. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. 2021.

References

External links

• Meena Harris at IMDb:

Family

• P. V. Gopalan (maternal grandfather)
• Sharada Balachandran Orihuela (maternal cousin)
• Shyamala Gopalan (mother)
• Maya Harris (sister)
• Meena Harris (niece)
• Donald J. Harris (father)
• Douglas Emhoff (husband)
• Ella Emhoff (stepdaughter)
• Tony West (brother-in-law)

Books

• Smart on Crime
• Superheroes Are Everywhere
• The Truths We Hold

Public image

• KHive

• ← Mike Pence

• Category
• Commons