Our Team

Meet the people who power Zinc Collective.

Leadership

Alicia Rockmore
Alicia Rockmore

Alicia Rockmore

Alicia is the CEO of Zinc Collective, a Democratic organization that focuses on recruiting, developing, and retaining diverse talent and addressing gaps in a technologically-enabled Democratic ecosystem.

Prior to co-founding Zinc Collective, Alicia had a successful career as a marketer and an entrepreneur where she founded companies designed to identify and fill unmet needs, including Spark Actions, a progressive millennial engagement platform, and Buttoned Up, a company dedicated to helping busy women get sanely organized. Alicia was also a senior CPG marketer in the US and Europe at Unilever and General Mills where she was named an Ad Age Top 100 Marketer and had her work featured in national publications including The New York Times, Fast Company, and The Wall Street Journal.

Alicia currently serves as a Democratic National Committee (DNC) At-Large Member and is a member of the DNC Budget and Finance Committee. She is also the donor advisor to LinkedIn Co-Founder Allen Blue and serves on the board of Defending Digital Campaigns.

Alicia lives in Los Angeles, CA, with her husband, Adam. They have one daughter, Lucy.

Alicia Rockmore
CEO
Sarah Kleinman
Hannah Nayowith

Sarah Kleinman

Sarah Kleinman is the President of Zinc Collective, a Democratic organization focused on recruiting, developing, and retaining diverse talent and transforming the Party to enable larger and more persistent Democratic majorities.

Prior to joining Zinc Collective in 2025, Sarah spent nearly two decades leading large-scale strategy work in mission-driven organizations across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Most recently, she was the Chief Strategy Officer at International Rescue Committee (IRC), where she helped guide the $1.6B global humanitarian NGO through complex operational, strategic, and crisis-response challenges. Prior to that, Sarah spent more than a decade at McKinsey & Company, where she was a Partner advising senior leaders on strategy.

Sarah also served as the Deputy Chief Program Officer and Director of Strategy at the Obama Foundation, where she led the development of the Foundation’s first strategic plan and worked directly with President and Mrs. Obama to design and scale programs and to grow the organization in its startup days.

A Rhodes Scholar, Sarah holds a PhD in International Relations from Oxford and both undergraduate and graduate degrees from Stanford. Sarah lives outside of Washington, DC in Silver Spring, MD, with her husband Mike and two kids, Lana and Maksym.

Sarah Kleinman
President
April Hepburn
April Hepburn

April Hepburn

April Hepburn, SPHR SHRM-CP, serves as the Director of People and Culture at Zinc Collective. In this role, she oversees strategic guidance and leadership across all facets of people operations.

With a career spanning more than twenty years, April has solidified her standing as a respected authority in human capital management and organizational development. Beyond her role as a former adjunct professor, April is renowned for her prowess as a skilled trainer and public speaker, having conducted workshops for diverse audiences.

As a forward-thinking HR practitioner, April demonstrates a profound understanding of the dynamic and ever-changing landscape of the modern workplace. She has successfully steered people operations in a range of industries, including technology, government, hospitality, retail, and nonprofit sectors, lending her expertise to both established corporations and emerging startups.

April's academic achievements include a Bachelor's degree in Organizational Management, a Master's in Adult Education, and an MBA in International Business. Additionally, she holds two Professional HR certifications, showcasing her commitment to excellence in the field.

April Hepburn
Director, People & Culture

Hannah Robinson-Armour
Alicia Rockmore

Hannah Robinson-Armour

Hannah Robinson-Armour is the Director of Budget and Finance at Zinc Collective. She comes to Zinc Collective with experience running operations for 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) nonprofit organizations, with a passion for solving puzzles at the intersection of finance and compliance.

Prior to joining Zinc Collective, Hannah worked at New Era Colorado where she served as Operations Director. While at New Era she bottom-lined budget, compliance, and human resources for the 501(c)(3)- and (c)(4)-affiliated organizations for three election cycles that saw sweeping success in both their electoral and legislative programs. She continues to be a big supporter of the Colorado progressive nonprofits.

Hannah holds a BA in history and chemistry from the University of Colorado and an MBA from the same university. She lives in Denver, CO with her husband and three children—two human and one canine.

Hannah Robinson-Armour
Director, Budget & Finance

Laura Warbelow
Alicia Rockmore

Laura Warbelow

Laura Warbelow
Chief of Staff

Justin Myers
Justin Myers

Justin Myers

Justin Myers is the Executive Director of Blue Leadership Collaborative. He has led the group's effort to develop and implement the organization’s highly competitive State Manager Program which recruits and supports diverse managers on state legislative campaigns around the country. Justin is committed to building the bench of the next generation of diverse and talented campaign managers and creating more equity across the Democratic Party's leadership.

Justin is the former CEO of For Our Future and For Our Future Action Fund, one of the largest permanent progressive organizing programs across Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Prior to working at For Our Future, Justin managed races at various levels of the ballot and served as the Executive Director of the New Jersey State Democratic Committee. He also served as DCCC’s Northeast Political Director, where he helped flip two congressional seats during a challenging electoral year.

Justin grew up as the son of a minister and two long-time union members in Philadelphia. After graduating from Colgate University, he taught history at a Title I high school while attending Fordham University for graduate school. His career in politics began in Harlem, where Justin became a community organizer and City Council liaison. He has been featured in national and local media outlets including, NBC News, POLITICO, AP, ABC News, C-SPAN, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Marketwatch, and New York Magazine.

Justin resides in Washington, DC, with his wife, Tanya, and two children, Ellis and Olivia.

Justin Myers
Executive Director, Blue Leadership Collaborative

Kane Miller
Kane Miller

Kane Miller

Kane Miller is the Executive Director of DigiDems, an organization within Zinc Collective that recruits, develops, supports, and retains diverse, high-potential tech talent and addresses technology gaps in the Democratic campaign sphere. After spending more than a decade running organizing programs and campaigns across the country, he joined DigiDems to focus on work that will build long-term tech and talent infrastructure advantages for Democratic campaigns.

Prior to joining DigiDems in 2020, Kane played leadership roles on multiple nationally prominent campaigns. He was one of the first handful of staff on the ground for Hillary Clinton’s successful 2016 Iowa caucus campaign and in 2018, he managed Abby Finkenauer’s successful Red to Blue challenge in IA-01, helping to secure the first Democratic House majority since 2010. He then went on to oversee the Early States program for Senator Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 Presidential primary campaign.

Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, Kane grew up in metro Atlanta and got started in campaigns by volunteering to register voters and knock on doors for Barack Obama in one of the most conservative counties in America. That volunteer work led to a job as a Field Organizer for the Obama campaign In Pennsylvania, and after returning to complete his undergraduate degree at the University of North Georgia, he embarked on a political career that would take him to ten different states in just over ten years.

Outside of work, Kane’s an avid baseball and college football (Go Vols) fan. He currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife Liz and his two rescue dogs, John Marshall and Bugsy.

Kane Miller
Executive Director, DigiDems

Matt Hodges
Alicia Rockmore

Matt Hodges

Matt Hodges is the Executive Director of Zinc Labs, a political innovation lab at Zinc Collective that houses the organization's strategic work in Democratic technology and pilot programs. Matt brings a blended background of technology and Democratic politics through his work in software development, data analytics, and systems infrastructure.

Matt sits on the Advisory Board of Higher Ground Labs, an accelerator that invests in early-stage political tech companies. He also is a member of the Advisory Board for Quiller, an Artificial Intelligence copilot that helps Democrats draft and deploy high quality, effective fundraising content. Previously, Matt was the Director of Engineering for President Joe Biden's 2020 campaign. His team was responsible for developing and implementing the technology infrastructure that powered the campaign, including data pipelines, fundraising tools, and voter outreach platforms. Prior to this, he was a Senior Software Engineer for The Groundwork, which provided the application and infrastructure platform that powered the 2016 presidential campaign of Secretary Hillary Clinton.

Before entering the world of political technology, Matt worked in the tech industry as a Software Engineer and Infrastructure Engineer at companies like Datadog, Lisnr, and Cardinal Solutions.

Matt Hodges
Strategic Tech Advisor
Allen Blue
Allen Blue

Allen Blue

Allen Blue is the Chairman of Zinc Collective and a co-founder of LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network, and currently serves as Vice President of Product Management, where he directs overall product strategy. His areas of focus include Equity Products, Climate Products, and LinkedIn’s Economic Graph, working with governments and institutions in the United States and worldwide to share economic data and improve education and workforce policy.

Allen is also engaged in policy advocacy around economic opportunity, the future of work, and climate change. He’s been featured at Chatham House, the Aspen Institute and the Council on Foreign Relations, where he’s collaborated with advocates and issue experts on some of the world’s most pressing problems.

Allen chairs the board of the Hope Street Group, a non-profit that brings economic opportunity to Americans through a combination of policy and practice, and sits on several other non-profit boards. Additionally, Allen is on the board of Defending Digital Campaigns and was a seed investor for the Democratic Data Exchange. Previously, Allen served as a member of the US Commerce Department’s Data Advisory Council under President Barack Obama.

Allen Blue
Chairman

Advisors

Mike Smith
Mike Smith
President, House Majority PAC
Former Senior Advisor, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
Robby Mook
Robby Mook
Strategy Consultant
Judith

Judith Hazlewood
Former Senior Partner, McKinsey & Company

Judith

Michelle Kleppe-Wellde
Democratic Strategist

Dan Boysen
Democratic Strategist
Matt Burgess
Principal, The New Media Firm

Karen Defilippi
Head of Campaigns & Creative Services, Berlin Rosen

Libby DeLana
Co-Founder, Mechanica

Raghu Devaguptapu
Managing Partner, Left Hook

Gabrielle Quintana Greenfield
Vice President, The Messina Group

Lucinda Guinn
Partner, Ralston Lapp Guinn Media

Kevin Harris
Democratic Strategist
Betsy Hoover
Managing Partner, Higher Ground Labs

Shannon Hunt-Scott
President & Co-Founder, The Scott Foundation

Michael Kaiser
President and CEO, Defending Digital Campaigns
Betsy Lin
Founder and CEO, Beelinning Strategies

Shaniqua McClendon
Vice President, Political Strategy, Crooked Media

David Omenn
Head of Education Talent, Bezos Academy

Liz Paley
Founder & Principal, Framework Consulting
Rebecca Pearcey
Partner, Bryson Gillette

Timothy Persico
Principal, GPS Impact; Former Executive Director DCCC

Greg Propper
President, Propper Daley
Ezra Reese
Partner, Elias Law Group
Josh Schwerin
President, Saratoga Strategies
Nellwyn Thomas
Head of Data, Shopify; Former CTO, DNC