List of Speakers & Panelists

Mindy Finn
Partner, CTBS LLC; Former Director of eStrategy, Romney '08 Campaign; Former Deputy Director of eCampaign, Republican National Committee '04

Mindy Finn, director of Finn Enterprises and a fellow at George Washington University’s Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet, is well known in grassroots politics for her work in leveraging technology to promote democracy at the legislative, campaign and political committee level. Most recently, she served as the Director of "e"Strategy for the Mitt Romney for President campaign.

In her role on the Romney campaign, she directed the effort to maximize technology and the web to best communicate the candidate's message, raise money and mobilize a strong base of support. Tactics included web video, social networking, blog outreach, user-generated content gathering, email list building and online advertising. Through her team's efforts, the campaign was recognized for such innovative efforts as Sign Up America!, MittTV, mini-Mitt, the Create Your Own Ad contest, and the Five Brothers' Blog, and for bringing in over $25 million over the Internet.

In 2007, Finn was selected by Campaigns & Elections as a Rising Star in American politics.  She was profiled in a cover story for The Washington Post as part of its Political Operatives series and featured in Glamour magazine’s story on 10 political powerhouses under 40. 

In 2006, Finn served as Director of New Media & Technology for U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, where her job also included guiding the campaign's use of microtargeting to contact and turn out key voters.

Her team helped Senator Santorum recruit over 50,000 active volunteers, provide outreach vehicles to more than 20 affinity groups and raise more than $1.2 million over the Internet, more than any other candidate in cycle. Finn was recognized by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review for being the Republican's best cyber campaigner in the nation and recognized by PoliticsPA.com for being one of Pennsylvania's most accomplished political operatives 26 and under.

Before serving Santorum, Finn served as Deputy Director of the Republican National Committee's eCampaign and Deputy Webmaster for Bush-Cheney '04. Both entities won the Golden Dots for their superior websites.

Finn has appeared on Hardball, PBS' the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, NPR, BBC Radio and local networks speaking about the role of new media and technology in the political process. She has also been a featured speaker at the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet and the Personal Democracy Forum’s annual conferences, among others, since 2005.

Finn started her career on Capitol Hill, serving in both the Senate and House in press and legislative roles.  She lives in Washington, D.C. and originally hails from Houston, Texas.