FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 5, 2024
Contact: Sam D’Arcangelo, RepresentUs, sdarcangelo@represent.us
Human Rights Watch executive and international pro-democracy advocate will take over as CEO of the nation’s largest grassroots anti-corruption organization in January
FLORENCE, MA - RepresentUs has announced that longtime pro-democracy and anti-autocracy leader Maria McFarland Sánchez-Moreno will take over as CEO beginning January 6, 2025. She will take the reins from current CEO and co-founder Joshua Graham Lynn, who will stay on in a new role and join the Board of Directors.
McFarland comes to RepresentUs after more than 17 years at Human Rights Watch, where she has held multiple leadership positions, including as co-director of the US program, deputy Washington director, and Acting Deputy Program Director. During her time with the renowned international research and advocacy organization, McFarland managed several divisions working in the US and across the globe and played a key role in organizational strategy and policy development. She stepped away from the group to serve as Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance from 2017 to 2020, leading a team of more than 50 people working on federal, state, and local campaigns at the nation’s premier drug policy reform organization.
McFarland is also an award-winning author whose writing has been published in The New York Times, LA Review of Books, Vox, Salon, Foreign Policy, and USA Today. Her 2017 narrative non-fiction book There Are No Dead Here: A Story of Murder and Denial in Colombia won the 2018 Juan E. Méndez Human Rights Book Award and has been published in both English and Spanish.
“As US politics grows increasingly dysfunctional, we urgently need a vibrant national movement to strengthen our civic culture and work for a system of government that’s accountable to all,” McFarland says. “I’m excited and deeply honored to join that movement as part of RepresentUs, and I look forward to building on the organization’s stellar record of impactful reforms and cutting edge narratives.”
“Maria’s experience fighting corruption here and abroad will be invaluable as we enter a critical period for American democracy,” says cofounder Joshua Graham Lynn. “Our system is as broken as it’s ever been. If we’re going to deliver the lasting structural change this country needs, we need a bigger and more impactful movement that inspires millions of people to confront corruption head-on. Maria is the right person to take us there. I’m thrilled to have her steering the ship during these uncertain times.”
“The board of RepresentUs is thrilled to welcome Maria as CEO,” says RepresentUs board chair Jon DeVaan. “Maria gives us excellent leadership to grow the movement to protect, restore, and build a government that represents and works for all Americans.”
McFarland will take over RepresentUs following a series of victories at the state and local level as well as high-profile campaigns calling out corruption by elected officials and warning of new threats to our democracy. In 2024, the group contributed to successful efforts to defend Ranked Choice Voting in Alaska, bring Ranked Choice Voting to Washington, D.C., protect direct democracy in Arizona, and establish an independent redistricting commission to end gerrymandering in Los Angeles. RepresentUs also earned considerable media attention with a star-studded video raising awareness about the threat of AI-generated election disinformation and a campaign to put a spotlight on congressional stock trading.
RepresentUs is America’s leading nonpartisan organization fighting to protect and strengthen democracy. We unite unlikely allies from across the political spectrum who put country over party to pass pro-democracy laws, fight corruption, and defeat authoritarian threats. We have won 185 victories in cities and states across America since our founding more than 12 years ago. Each win brings us one step closer to our vision of making America the world’s strongest democracy.