After working for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, Saikat Chakrabarti, a Harvard Graduate, co-founded an organization called Brand New Congress with a lofty goal: Launch hundreds of progressive candidates into congressional races.

Hundreds didn’t exactly pan out, but one major star emerged from that process: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Saikat supported her candidacy for Congress serving as her campaign chair and last summer, the political world was shocked with a primary upset when Ocasio-Cortez took the win over rising party leader Joe Crowley in New York City.

Saikat now serves as her Chief of Staff and was included on Politico’s 2019 “Playbook Power List.”