The announcement comes as Clinton launches a campaign that has been light on policy specifics so far. Clinton names top 3 wonks for campaign

Hillary Clinton has named three senior policy advisers to lead the development of an agenda for her presidential campaign, setting the stage for a series of policy rollouts that campaign officials hope to begin late next month after her early phase of road trips to meet voters.

The team will be headed by Maya Harris, a former senior fellow at the Center for American Progress; Ann O’Leary, a former legislative director to Clinton when she was in the Senate; and Jake Sullivan, a top aide to Clinton while she was Secretary of State and a former national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden.


The announcement of a policy team heavy on expertise in foreign policy, children and families, and global human rights is an early indication of the kinds of policy themes she could emphasize as she launches her campaign. All are issues Clinton has promoted in her recent speeches and in her book, “Hard Choices.”

Harris has a background in human rights, having served as Vice President of Democracy, Rights and Justice at the Ford Foundation, where she led a team that promoted effective governance, democracy and human rights around the world. O’Leary specializes in early childhood education and headed the children and families program at Next Generation, the Tom Steyer-funded advocacy group.

Sullivan, meanwhile, was a key player in laying the groundwork for the talks that led to the tentative agreement on Iran’s nuclear program — but he also had a reputation for skepticism on Iran, which could give the Clinton campaign a harder line on the issue than the Obama administration has embraced.

The announcement comes as Clinton launches a campaign that has been light on policy specifics so far. She may talk about broad issues on her road tour to meet voters, but she hasn’t said much to a national audience other than her campaign video — which talked about the need to stand up for “everyday Americans,” an indication that she’ll likely give more of a nod to Elizabeth Warren-style populism than she has in the past.

That reliance on general themes is by design. The big policy rollouts will come after Clinton is finished with the early ramp up of her campaign and the visits with voters, which should wrap up in late May, according to a campaign official.

Clinton has also been talking about policy themes already, in a series of early conversations with advisers last fall as she was deciding whether to jump into the race, the official said.

The three policy leaders will be the official top wonks, but they aren’t the only Clinton advisers with policy backgrounds. John Podesta, the campaign chairman, headed President Barack Obama’s executive action agenda until earlier this year and was the founder of the Center for American Progress. Clinton’s also likely to keep getting informal advice from Neera Tanden, the current president of CAP and a longtime adviser.

And Tony Carrk, the campaign research director, has a background in health care policy, particularly Obamacare. He was the director of the “health care war room” at the CAP Action Fund.