Reid Nelson brings a wealth of political and legal experience to his work as NDI’s country director in Russia. A licensed attorney, Mr. Nelson cut his political teeth in Indiana politics working on numerous campaigns, his first as a young volunteer for Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential bid in 1968. Since then he has managed and consulted on local, statewide, congressional and senate races for both Democrats and Republicans, and worked internationally.

After graduation from law school, Mr. Nelson clerked for the Indiana Supreme Court and then entered private practice in Indianapolis, working primarily in litigation. During this time, he lent his political expertise to a number of candidates for local races, helping them craft winning campaign strategies and plans with strong grass roots components.

He opened one of the first public relations/public affairs offices in a former Soviet Union state in Ukraine as vice-president for the Washington-based Robinson Lake Sawyer Miller. He later joined the firm of KSRH and worked in Bogotá for the president of Colombia, shaping the communications strategy for the successful effort to remove decertification status for Colombia in the anti-drug war.

Mr. Nelson has also headed up a number of successful, broad-based grass roots, ballot access and ballot initiative efforts. In Texas, he put together a 100-county organization that garnered over 175,000 signatures to put an independent candidate on the ballot. In California, he helped manage a ballot initiative drive that collected over 2.5 million signatures in just over seven weeks. His international political work includes designing plans for political party building in Ghana and Nicaragua, and as senior political strategist for an independent campaign in Panama.

Mr. Nelson was graduated cum laude from the Indiana University School of Law and holds a B.A. with highest distinction in anthropology from Indiana University.