Sona Rai

Sona Rai has an extensive background in communications and media relations. Sona began their career in 2009 as a Senior Media Relations Manager at Columbia Business School, where they were the only team member focused on proactive and day-to-day media outreach. During their time there, they secured a second-place position in media coverage (among peer institutions) for Columbia Business School in 2010 and 2011. In 2012, they became the Director of Media Relations at CreativeFeed, where they created campaigns that secured coverage worth 60 million in circulation in three months. In 2014, they served as both a board member and full-time staff at the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF), where they secured 86 news articles in top-tier and regional outlets in the US. That same year, they also took on the role of Senior Account Director at DiGennaro Communications, where they led communications efforts throughout the Advertising Research Foundation’s annual Re:Think 2014 and surpassed KPIs by 200 percent. In 2015, they became the Director of Communications for the City of New York Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs and IDNYC, where they managed all proactive and reactive media outreach and created and executed strategies to successfully launch the nation’s leading programs. In 2016, they were Director of Communications at Quartz, where they led communications efforts across both commercial and editorial and product departments for a global team of more than 200. From 2018 to 2021, they served as the Director of Communications at the New American Economy, where they created new strategies for media outreach and email marketing to heighten the impact of the organization. Most recently, they have been the Media Strategy Director at the Vera Institute of Justice, where they grew a team of two into a team of eight within a span of one year to work on building a media profile for Vera. Sona is currently the Director of Communications at the Data & Society Research Institute.

Sona Rai began their educational journey at Bridgewater Raritan High School. Sona then attended the University of Rochester from 2001 to 2005, where they earned a B.A. in Political Science, English, and International Relations. In 2009, they began their EMPA in International Economy Policy at Columbia | SIPA and completed it in 2012.