Today, A Better Balance announces significant leadership change with the appointment of a new President: Inimai Chettiar, a leading civil rights attorney and justice advocate with more than two decades of experience leveraging the law to advance transformative reforms. Ms. Chettiar, a national leader in the criminal justice reform movement, will draw on her career as a legal expert and advocate to lead the organization’s work to advance work-family justice into the next era. Co-founders Dina Bakst and Sherry Leiwant, who co-led the organization for nearly 19 years, announced earlier this year that they are stepping down to pass the torch to new leadership.
Chettiar’s appointment to lead A Better Balance comes at a pivotal moment for the country, as workplace policy, especially for women and caregivers, is central to the national conversation and political agenda. With less than 100 days left until the Presidential election, attention is sharply focused on the impact the next President as well as down ballot candidates could have on the rights A Better Balance has long fought to uphold and defend. Chettiar will lead at the forefront of the fight for economic, gender, and racial justice, helping advance legal change that empowers workers and their families.
“We stand at an unequivocally pivotal moment for gender and workplace justice,” said Inimai Chettiar, incoming President of A Better Balance. “We must seize the moment as a movement – and use this time to aggressively advance policy to benefit family caregivers and workers of all kinds, ensuring our laws keep pace with modern family structures and the way we work today. None of the advancements of the past two decades and what’s yet to be achieved would be possible without Sherry and Dina’s extraordinary and visionary leadership. Because of A Better Balance, millions of individuals are better protected as they care for themselves and their loved ones, and policymakers across party lines know the power of our collective voices and our individual stories. I look forward to advancing this legacy of change.”
Bringing years of experience in litigation, advocacy, coalition building, and communications, Chettiar’s approach to serving as A Better Balance’s President is framed around the intersectionality between social justice, racial justice, and workplace policies that advance meaningful change for women and families. She also brings personal experience in navigating the challenges of workplace requirements and medical needs.
Under Chettiar’s leadership, A Better Balance is poised for its next era and committed to further building on its two decades of success. Recognizing the urgency of its mission, the organization will focus on maximizing its reach and impact across local, state, and national levels. Key initiatives include:
- Advancing national paid family and medical leave and paid sick time legislation, including the FAMILY Act and Healthy Families Act;
- Enforcing the groundbreaking new Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and PUMP for Nursing Mothers Act;
- Expanding access to paid family and medical leave and paid sick time across the country and effectively implementing the laws A Better Balance helped to pass;
- Providing free direct legal assistance to thousands of workers nationwide and advancing cutting-edge strategic litigation to enforce their rights;
- Expanding outreach and education to working families so they can understand and enforce their rights; and
- Protecting workers who need – and deserve – fair and flexible work to meet their medical and family needs.
Prior to her appointment to A Better Balance, Chettiar served as Deputy Executive Director and Federal Director of the Justice Action Network, the nation’s largest bipartisan criminal justice reform organization. Her leadership and coalition building helped secure the passage of the First Step Act to release over 30,000 people from prison, Fair Chance Act, and other key federal legislation.
Chettiar also served as the Director of the Justice Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, where she established the Center as a national leader in ending mass incarceration, authored groundbreaking reports on crime and incarceration, positioned criminal justice as an issue central to the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections and the national narrative, worked to transform law enforcement. Through Chettiar’s leadership, mass incarceration became recognized as more than an issue of criminal justice reform and was successfully framed around the deep and generational impact it has on families. She also served as Counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union. She is a graduate of Georgetown University and the University of Chicago Law School, is widely published in numerous journals, reports, and books, and is quoted extensively across top tier national media outlets.
Chettiar’s appointment is effective today. Bakst and Leiwant remain a part of A Better Balance as Senior Advisors and Board Members. Elizabeth Gedmark and Jared Make continue to serve as Vice Presidents and Steven Toledo as Chief Operating Officer.
“We could not be prouder to announce Inimai’s appointment as President of A Better Balance,” said co-founders and former co-presidents Bakst and Leiwant. “Nearly two decades ago, we founded A Better Balance from a recognition that existing laws were leaving caregivers behind. We knew we could – and urgently needed to – do better. Today, we proudly look back on successes that have helped empower and bring justice to millions of workers and their families. But the work is far from over. We know that under Inimai’s dynamic leadership, brilliant legal expertise and commitment to justice, A Better Balance will thrive and see further success in bringing justice and opportunity to the parents, mothers, and caregivers of our workforce.”
“On behalf of the entire Board, we are thrilled to welcome Inimai to A Better Balance,” said Ariel Devine, Chair of the Board of Directors. “Her remarkable record of success is a testament to her commitment to equity and justice. She has fought tirelessly to use the power of the law to serve the greater good and has created truly meaningful, lasting impact throughout the country as a result of her work over the past two decades. We look forward to a new chapter for A Better Balance’s under Inimai’s leadership and are confident she will continue the organization’s record of groundbreaking work for America’s workers and caregivers.”
As a result of A Better Balance’s work under the pioneering leadership of Bakst and Leiwant, millions of individuals are no longer forced to choose between caring for themselves, a sick child, or seriously ill loved one and earning a paycheck. Over the last two decades, A Better Balance’s efforts have resulted in the passage of paid family and medical leave programs in 14 states and paid sick time policies in 16 states and dozens of localities. And in 2022, after a decade of A Better Balance’s steadfast advocacy and leadership, Congress passed the groundbreaking, bipartisan federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. The passage and enforcement of strong work-family policies are vital for all workers as they care for themselves and their loved ones, but especially for low-wage workers, women of color, and the U.S.’s 53 million family caregivers. A Better Balance also works to enforce the laws that govern our workplaces through strategic litigation and public education. The organization has secured much-needed relief for millions of workers following legal actions challenging pregnancy discrimination, including at the retail giant Walmart. Its free, confidential work-family legal helpline provides direct assistance for thousands of individuals each year.
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