On November 16, 2020, Biden announced Jen O’Malley Dillon would assume the role of White House deputy chief of staff in the administration.
The position: Helps run day-to-day operations of the White House staff.
Jennifer Brigid O’Malley Dillon was born in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston in 1976.
O’Malley Dillon’s great-grandparents were Irish Catholic immigrants from Gorumna Island, County Galway [west coast of Ireland].
Her parents are Kevin O’Malley, a school administrator, and Kathleen O’Malley. O’Malley Dillon has three siblings. When O’Malley Dillon was a child the family relocated from Jamaica Plain to Franklin, Massachusetts, to be closer to her father’s job.
O’Malley Dillon attended Tufts University, where she majored in political science and was captain of the university’s softball team.
In 1998, she earned her bachelor’s degree. O’Malley Dillon decided she wanted to work in politics while on a family vacation to Washington, D.C..
O’Malley Dillon’s first role in politics was answering phones for Massachusetts attorney general Scott Harshbarger.
She joined Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign as a field organizer in 1999 and rose to become a regional field director by the end of the campaign.
She worked as a field director for the U.S. Senate campaigns of Tim Johnsonand Mary Landrieu.
In 2003, she worked as Iowa field director for John Edwards’s 2004 presidential campaign, and, after Edwards left the race, became deputy campaign manager for Senator Tom Daschle’s reelection campaign.
In 2007, she again went to work for John Edwards on his 2008 presidential campaign as his Iowa state director and later deputy campaign manager.
After Edwards was again eliminated, O’Malley Dillon joined Barack Obama’s presidential campaign for the general election as battleground states director.
After Obama’s election, she worked on the presidential transition as associate director of personnel, and then was hired as the executive director of the Democratic National Committee under Tim Kaine.
In 2011, she joined Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign as deputy campaign manager, contributing to Project Narwhal.
After Obama’s reelection, she co-founded the political consulting firm Precision Strategies with fellow Obama campaign alumni Stephanie Cutter and Teddy Goff.
She led Precision’s consulting effort for the Liberal Party of Canada in the 2015 Canadian federal election.
In 2015, O’Malley Dillon shared on Twitter that she was “proud to be Irish American” after the Republic of Ireland voted by referendum to legalize same-sex marriage.
After the 2016 United States presidential election, she was chair of the Democratic National Committee’s Unity Reform Commission.
In 2019, she was involved in an effort by Democratic Party data and political personnel to create a data exchange to allow for greater information sharing between Democratic campaigns and allies, a project that party leaders see as crucial for catching up with the Republican data program.
Later in 2019, she was hired as manager of Beto O’Rourke’s 2020 presidential campaign.
In April 2020, O’Malley Dillon was announced as the new manager for Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.
O’Malley Dillon is married to Patrick Dillon. They have three children.
Her second cousin is Matt O’Malley, an American politician who serves as a member of the Boston City Council.
Jen O’Malley Dillon is the first female presidential campaign manager for a winning Democratic ticket.