Aisha Mills

Aisha Mills joined the NIRH AF Board of Directors in 2019, and transitioned to Interim President in November 2023. She brings with her more than two decades of federal policy, non-profit leadership, and political experience. A nationally renowned public affairs strategist and progressive thought leader, Aisha’s analysis and advocacy at the intersections of race, class, and sexuality have shaped federal policy and national debates for over twenty years.  

In the span of her career, Aisha has served at the helm of organizations including the LGBTQ Victory Fund and Institute and the Congressional Black Caucus Political Action Committee; led policy initiatives at think tanks, including the Center for American Progress; and staffed political campaigns from Louisiana and Texas to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. She founded Mills Strategies where she has advised on public health policy strategies like obtaining FDA approval for the first over-the-counter birth control regimen.  

In 2019, Aisha was appointed a resident fellow at Harvard Kennedy School where she taught a weekly seminar on the nation’s shifting demographics and the rise of the “New American Majority” of people of color, who will soon make up the majority of the population. Her course brought together diverse activists and political leaders from across the country to share their expertise with students. She is invited back frequently to teach seminars on diversity, equity, and inclusion in government and politics.  

Aisha’s wide array of experience across political, policy, and communications and deep advocacy for reproductive freedom will provide NIRH and its Action Fund with a steady hand while it moves into a new chapter of state and local reproductive freedom advocacy.   

The most southern Jersey girl you’ll ever meet, Aisha was raised in New Jersey by her grandparents who left South Carolina in the 1950s as part of the great migration of African Americans fleeing the Jim Crow south. She now resides in the Hudson Valley with her partner and three bonus children.