Shelly Heald Han

Shelly Heald Han is FLA’s Executive Vice President and Chief of Staff. In this role she works to ensure the organization can efficiently meet its mission by overseeing special projects and strategic communications, and implementing the strategic plan. Han also manages FLA’s Civil Society Caucus, facilitates outreach to labor groups and other stakeholders, and coordinates the organization’s public affairs activities that promote labor rights around the globe. Han’s career has centered on human rights advocacy and corporate social responsibility.

Before joining the FLA in 2016, Han was a senior policy advisor to members of Congress at the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. There, she wrote legislation, organized congressional hearings, and launched human rights advocacy campaigns focused on combatting corruption, supporting human rights defenders and journalists, and advancing online freedom. From 2000–06, Han held policy positions on trade, national security and immigration at the Departments of Commerce and Homeland Security. Prior to joining the government, she worked in the private sector helping companies ethically do business in international markets.

Han has a master’s degree in international commerce and policy from George Mason University and a double-major undergraduate degree in political science and East Asian Studies is from the University of Arizona. She is fluent in Mandarin Chinese, and in her spare time is a professional photographer.