Madalene Mielke, Pres. & CEO of APAICS Artwork

The Ronin Project Podcast

The RONIN PROJECT PODCAST is a weekly podcast airing on Sundays hosted by veteran political strategist Bill Wong about bad Asians getting into good trouble. This podcast will feature Asian American elected officials, candidates, and career campaign operatives to give Asian Americans insight and inspiration into claiming their rightful place in the halls of power and to curate Asian American political stories that have heretofore been ignored or erased. It will be real and raw conversations on Asian Americans and where they meet or miss the arena of politics, power, influence, justice, and representation. This no-nonsense podcast is for Asian Americans who want to know more about how politics is played, political professionals that want to know more about Asian Americans and how they vote, and troublemakers who want to make the world a better place. Bill Wong has over 30 years of experience that includes work as a chief of staff, a lobbyist, a political director, and a strategist to community non-profits, powerful labor organizations and Fortune 100 companies. He recently served as the senior political advisor to California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon and led efforts that elected and held the largest Assembly Democratic supermajority in over 130 years. In addition, he has dedicated his career to mentoring Asian Americans political professionals and helping elect a historic number of Asian Americans to local, state, and federal offices.

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The Ronin Project Podcast

Madalene Mielke, Pres. & CEO of APAICS

February 25, 2024 • Bill Wong • Season 3 • Episode 3

Madalene Xuan-Trang Mielke is a nationally recognized civil rights leader and a member of USA Today’s Inaugural Leaders of Change. As President & CEO of the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies (APAICS) and Founder and Principal of Arum Group, LLC, she brings nearly 25 years of experience working in political campaigns and specializes in political/non-profit fundraising and political training.

After returning from the ’96 campaign, Ms. Mielke worked for the Co-Executive Director at the Presidential Inaugural Committee and later to Vice President Gore’s team. Ms. Mielke started fundraising while working at the New Democrat Network PAC and she returned to her roots as the Training Director for the Ron Brown-Paul Tully Institute (BTI), the training arm of the DNC. In 2002 Ms. Mielke started her political consulting firm, specializing in fundraising and political training. Madalene has collaborated with the NAACP National Voter Fund, John Kerry for President, Democratic National Committee Asian American Leadership Council, Mike Honda for Congress, Friends of Hillary, CHC BOLD PAC, Akaka for US Senate, Xavier Becerra for Congress, Mazie Hirono for Congress, Honda for Congress, America’s Opportunity Fund, Asian American Action (AAA) Fund and Young Democrats of America to raise millions of dollars to empower communities of color.

Throughout her career, Madalene has been a featured speaker or trainer at many conferences and trainings including the American Medical Association (AMA), the Center for Asian Pacific American Women, Virginia Leadership Institute, Netroots Nation, Conference on Asian Pacific American Leadership (CAPAL), and numerous other organizations and non-profits.

She has spent her entire professional political career working to bring diversity to the political process and nurturing candidates and staff as they move forward in bringing political change. The Vietnamese American Chamber of Commerce awarded Ms. Mielke with its National Community Service award for her work in mentoring and promoting Vietnamese American civic participation.

Madalene is a proud graduate of Tulane University, Newcomb College. She serves as a mentor through a variety of collegiate mentoring programs including the Newcomb College Institute Women to Women Mentoring Program and Georgetown University’s Politics Mentorship Program.

https://www.apaics.org

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https://www.efundraisingconnections.com/c/RoninProjectPAC

Thanks for listening, see you next week!

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