Ashe McGovern
Amazon, Inc.
Ashe McGovern (he/they) is the Head of Global LGBTQIA+ Affairs at Amazon, where they are responsible for leading companywide strategy to support LGBTQIA+ employees, customers, and communities globally.
Prior to joining Amazon, Ashe was appointed to serve as the Senior Policy Advisor for LGBTQ Initiatives in the New York City Mayor’s Office and inaugural Executive Director of the NYC Unity Project, New York’s first citywide LGBTQIA+ mayoral office. In this role, Ashe developed and managed a $15 million portfolio of programs and services, created in close partnership with city agencies and LGBTQIA+ community groups, focused on reducing LGBTQIA+ youth homelessness, increasing access to affordable housing, expanding free LGBTQIA+ mental and medical health services, and reducing criminalization and violence against LGBTQIA+ New Yorkers.
Ashe earned their B.A. from Cornell University, magna cum laude, where they received the Philo Sherman Benett Honors Thesis Prize and J.D. from Cornell Law School, where they received the Freeman Award for Civil-Human Rights and a national Equal Justice Works Fellowship. Prior to the Mayor’s Office, Ashe launched a free legal project called the LGBTQIA+ Health and Economic Justice Initiative at New York Legal Assistance Group and held leadership positions at the Center for American Progress and Columbia Law School’s Center for Gender and Sexuality Law.
Ashe is co-author and co-editor of Intersecting Injustice: A National Call to Action Addressing LGBTQ Poverty and Economic Justice for All (2018) published by the City University of New York Graduate Center and has been featured in a range of media outlets, including The New York Times, The Nation, Bloomberg Law, Wired, and NPR, among others.