Mike Lux and Erica Payne

Michael Lux is the co-founder and CEO of Progressive Strategies, L.L.C., a political consulting firm founded in 1999, focused on strategic political consulting for non-profits, labor unions, PACs and progressive donors. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Political Action at People For the American Way (PFAW), and the PFAW Foundation, and served at the White House from January 1993 to mid-1995 as a Special Assistant to the President for Public Liaison. While at Progressive Strategies, Lux has founded, and currently chairs a number of new organizations and projects, including American Family Voices, the Progressive Donor Network, and BushRecall.org. Lux serves on the boards of several other organizations including the Arca Foundation, Americans United for Change, Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, Center for Progressive Leadership, Democratic Strategist, Grassroots Democrats, Progressive Majority and Women's Voices/Women Vote.


Erica Payne is the principal of The Tesseract Group, a strategy firm focused on building an effective progressive infrastructure by providing philanthropic advisory services, management consulting and communications strategy expertise. Prior to founding The Tesseract Group, Erica co-founded the Democracy Alliance, a venture capacity for progressive institutions. While founding the Alliance, Erica also served as a political advisor to the Soros Family and as a consultant to the New Democrat Network, which incubated the Democracy Alliance.

Prior to that, Erica served in senior capacities in both the public and the private sectors including: Director of Marketing for Dragonfly Wireless, Director of Marketing for Marquis Jet Partners; and Deputy National Finance Director for the Democratic National Committee during the 1996 election.

Erica is the editor of The Practical Progressive and Next Left: The Unofficial, Incomplete and Utterly Biased Guide to the New Progressive Infrastructure. She is also the editor of The Tesseract Effect, a monthly newsletter for progressive influencers which highlights progress in the development of an effective progressive infrastructure. Erica has an MBA from the Wharton School at UPenn and a BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.