Rhonda Binda is VP Policy for Venture Smarter and Director of their Smart Regions Initiative. She has a distinguished history of public service, as Deputy Director for the U.S. Department of State’s Global Intergovernmental Affairs Division, and in the West Wing of the White House, under two administrations respectively. In between her government tours she practiced technology law with Alston & Bird.

Binda most recently returned to her hometown and served as the Executive Director of the Jamaica Business Improvement District. Under her tenure, Governor Cuomo awarded Jamaica the #1 award state-wide for downtown revitalization, Jamaica was named #1 hottest neighborhood in NYC by the Wall Street Journal and won NYC’s SBS Neighborhood Challenge Grant.

In 2016, she was Queens Chamber of Commerce’s Business Leader of the Year and named Community Leader of the Year by QCYD. Binda attended Duke and Oxford and received her JD from Georgetown.