Vice President & Director, Children & Families Program

Ann O’Leary directs the Children and Families Program at Next Generation, which includes spearheading “Too Small to Fail”—Next Generation’s joint initiative with the Clinton Foundation to help parents and businesses take meaningful actions to improve the health and well-being of children ages zero to five — developing a national research portfolio, and leading policy activities in California.

Ann also serves as a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress where she writes about work-family policies.  Ann previously served as a lecturer in health law at UC Berkeley School of Law, Executive Director of the Berkeley Center on Health, Economic & Family Security at UC Berkeley School of Law, a Deputy City Attorney for the city of San Francisco, Legislative Director to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, and led the children and family policy team on the White House Domestic Policy Council under President William J. Clinton.  She also served as a member of the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team, advising the incoming administration on early childhood education issues.

Ann is a member of the board for KQED, Northern California’s public news provider, and the East Bay Community Law Center, a legal aid clinic for low-income community members in Berkeley, California. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Mount Holyoke College, a master’s in education policy from Stanford University and a law degree from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.

Ann is a resident of Oakland where she lives with her husband, Goodwin Liu, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of California, and their two children, Violet and Emmett.