As Chief Advocacy and Engagement Officer, Kristen Kiefer provides strategic and operational oversight of NCOA’s advocacy, engagement, research, strategy, and public policy activities. She leads government affairs and legislative campaigns and manages public policy efforts through research, tracking, analysis, and reporting of Congressional outreach, institutional partnerships, and grassroots and grass-tops engagements.

Prior to becoming Chief Advocacy and Engagement Officer for NCOA, Kiefer served as the organization’s Executive-level Chief Administrative Officer and in various capacities in the benefits access programmatic area. As Director of Special Projects, she assisted with the start-up of the National Center for Benefits Outreach and Enrollment. She served as a Research Manager for the Access to Benefits Coalition, where she developed and implemented data collection strategies to identify and evaluate cost-effective and efficient practices to enroll Medicare beneficiaries into public benefits and provided training and technical assistance on the Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage’s Extra Help subsidy.

Before joining NCOA, Kiefer was a Research Associate at the Institute for the Future of Aging Services at the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging (now LeadingAge), a Research Assistant at the National Academy on an Aging Society at the Gerontological Society of America, and as Staff Assistant in the Office of Senator John Glenn on Capitol Hill. Kiefer served as an elected local official for nearly six years after running three successful campaigns, furthering her understanding of the importance of local politics in the larger policy and advocacy landscape.

Kiefer holds a Master of Public Policy degree from Georgetown University and a Bachelor of Science in Health, and a Bachelor of Business Administration from Ohio University.