Michael Yaki is a gifted writer, speaker, and negotiator. He served 7 years as senior advisor to Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. Michael was involved in all facets of federal policy and assisted in San Francisco's recovery from the 1989 earthquake.
Appointed to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1996 and elected citywide that same year, he served as Chair of the Telcom and Economic Development committee and Chair of the San Francisco Transportation Authority, and also served on the Bay Area Air Quality Management District board of directors. He also served four years as a Director of the San Francisco Public Employees Retirement (SFPERS) Fund. During his tenure, he carried and negotiated the legislation for the new Giants ballpark and the City's newest neighborhood, Mission Bay.
In the private sector since 2001, he was appointed by then-Minority Leader Pelosi to the United States Commission on Civil Rights in 2005 for a six-year term.
In 2008, he was named as the National Platform Director for the Obama for America campaign. In that role, he launced an unprecedented "Listening to America" component of the platform that spawned more than 1600 self-generated platform meetings in which more then 30,000 people participated, offering input to the drafters and members of the platform committee.
In addition to his firm, he writes for the San Francisco Chronicle website sfgate.com as a featured "City Brights" blogger at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/yaki/index. He has also written multiple op-eds each for the New York Times, the Fort Worth Star-Bulletin, and the San Francisco Chronicle.
Michael is a frequent commentator on radio and television, and often guest lectures on politics and communication at local universities.
Michael is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Yale Law School.
