FREOPP Leadership: Lanhee Chen
You’ve heard about “the guy behind the guy.” When it comes to public policy, few “guys behind the guy” are more important than Lanhee Chen.
Lanhee was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina to Taiwanese parents, and grew up in southern California, where he became a fan of the Showtime-era Los Angeles Lakers. He earned four degrees from Harvard — a bachelor’s in Government, a master’s and Ph.D. in Political Science, and a J.D. Since Harvard, he has spent his career at the intersection of policy and politics, inside and outside of government.
Lanhee may be best known for the work he’s done on presidential campaigns. Politico has called him one of the nation’s “most-courted” advisers.
In 2004, he advised the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign on health policy. In 2008 was the domestic policy adviser to a then little-known Massachusetts governor named Mitt Romney. In 2012, he served as Romney’s Policy Director and as a senior strategist on Romney’s campaign, where Lanhee produced one of the most detailed and sweeping policy manifestos in GOP history. Most recently, Lanhee was a senior adviser to Marco Rubio’s presidential bid.
Today, Lanhee is back in California, where he spends a lot of time on campus at Stanford University. He’s the David and Diane Steffy Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and the Director of Domestic Policy Studies and Lecturer in Stanford’s Public Policy Program. He has also taught at Stanford Law School, and sits on the faculty steering committee of Stanford’s Haas Center for Public Service. Lanhee serves on a number of boards, and served a stint as a presidential appointee to the bipartisan and independent Social Security Advisory Board.
Although he lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, Lanhee remains a die-hard southern California sports fan. “I get a lot of dirty looks around the Bay Area when I wear my Lakers and Dodgers gear, but that won’t ever change my allegiances,” Lanhee says.
Lanhee is a member of FREOPP’s Board of Directors, where he helps to provide oversight to our executive team. In his words: “For the conservative movement to prosper in the future, it must refocus its attention on how to create opportunity for Americans who need it most. I’m excited to work with the talented team of people that have come together to form FREOPP. I know that the free market principles on which this group is founded are the right ones for the promotion of prosperity in America for years to come.”
Lanhee lives in Mountain View, California with his wife, Cynthia, and their two kids — both of whom Lanhee intends to raise to love the same sports teams their father does.
Follow Lanhee on Twitter: @lanheechen
