Every year, the University of Illinois Alumni Association invites a group of prominent and accomplished alumni back to the campus to participate in various activities during Homecoming Weekend, with a focus on providing opportunities for honorees to interact with current students, sharing information about their professional experiences and the value of their University of Illinois education.
Michael Strautmanis, ’91 MEDIA, JD ’94 has been selected as the 2016 Illini Comeback Guest. The Chicago-native is vice president of civic engagement for the Barack Obama Foundation, a nonprofit established to carry on President Obama’s unfinished project of renewal and global progress. There, Strautmanis—who previously served as vice president of corporate citizenship and strategic programs for The Walt Disney Co.—is tasked with developing and leading the execution of outreach efforts and civic engagement programs.
Strautmanis has worked with Obama since his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, initially serving as the then-senator’s chief counsel and deputy chief of staff. He later became senior counsel for Obama for America. As a member of the presidential campaign’s congressional relations team, Strautmanis played a key role in political outreach. Following the 2008 presidential election, he joined Obama’s transition team as chief counsel and director of public liaison and intergovernmental affairs. Strautmanis later served as deputy assistant to the president, senior advisor to the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, and counselor for strategic engagement and chief of staff for the administration’s senior advisor, Valerie Jarrett.
Strautmanis began his professional career practicing complex litigation and employment law at Sidley Austin in Chicago before joining the Clinton administration as chief of staff to the general counsel at the U.S. Agency for International Development.