About
Lisa Nelson has been the CEO of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) since 2014 and is a member of the boards of the State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF) and the National Center for Public Policy.
With an extensive history as a corporate lobbyist, Nelson has lobbied on behalf of Visa, AOL, and Time Warner. Prior to joining ALEC, she worked as a managing partner of Ulysses Consulting.
Nelson started her political career in the 1980s, working in the Republican National Committee’s strategic planning office. In 1994, as executive director of GOPAC, she was instrumental in helping Republicans win back control of the U.S. House for the first time in more than 40 years. Her public-sector roles include serving as then Speaker of the House Leader Newt Gingrich’s public affairs liaison and, under President George W. Bush, acting as a commissioner for the White House Fellows Program.
While working at the National Review decades later, Nelson founded the National Review Institute, an associate member of the State Policy Network, in 2013. She was formerly. She earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and international relations from the University of California at Berkeley.
Actions
- Signed an Advancing American Freedom coalition letter to Congress asking it to “overturn the Biden administration’s dangerous ESG rule through the Congressional Review Act” (2/7/23)
- Moderated the “Politicizing ESG Investing” panel at ALEC’s 2022 Annual Meeting with Will Hild of Consumers’ Research and Jessica Anderson, CEO of Heritage Action (7/29/22)
- Promoted a new coalition to fight “corporate woke culture” at the May 2021 meeting of the Council for National Policy, stating that, “We’re particularly sensitive about this corporate woke culture,” and noting ALEC’s role in forming a “‘Back to Neutral Coalition’ that is really, really active” (5/21)