Senior Advisor
Kristina Costa is a recovering public servant and Fenway’s resident policy wonk.
Costa served as Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation in the Biden White House, where she worked alongside John Podesta to oversee the successful implementation of the climate and clean energy provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. In just under two and a half years, Costa built a lean White House team and managed a complex interagency policy process that issued guidance on 23 clean energy tax provisions, obligated more than $98 billion in federal grants, and spurred more than $450 billion in private-sector investment.
You’ll never guess what happened next!
Prior to her White House role, Costa served as senior advisor and speechwriter to Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, diplomacy’s own “Silver Fox.” As a member of “D staff,” Costa circumnavigated the world three times, hand-wrote a joint U.S.-Russia press release (prior to the whole “illegal land war in Europe” thing), and was “coined” by a three-star Marine Corps general for “services to speechwriting.”
Costa also served in the Obama White House as advisor to the counselor to the President; as a policy advisor, speechwriter, and member of Hillary Clinton’s debate prep team on her 2016 campaign; as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress; and for a brief and shining year as a principal at Fenway. As penance for her sins in a past life (she assumes), she has twice been involved in the drafting of the Democratic Party platform.
In addition to serving as a senior advisor at Fenway, Costa provides freelance policy and strategic consulting services to a range of organizations.
Costa received her BA in political philosophy from Wellesley College and a master’s degree from the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University, where she was a McCourt Scholar.
She lives in Washington, DC, with her partner Patrick and their extremely photogenic ginger tabby, Roosevelt.