Mary V. Hughes heads a new initiative called the 2012 Project, a non-partisan group affiliated with the well-respected Rutgers University Center for American Women in Politics. Hughes is also co-founder and President of Staton Hughes, a strategic communications and political consulting firm in Palo Alto.

She has directed campaigns and advised elected officials in contests resulting in a number of groundbreaking “firsts:” Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the first woman in US history to lead her Party in Congress; Delaine Eastin, the first woman Superintendent of Schools in California; SF Superior Court Judge Donna Hitchen, the first open lesbian judge elected in the nation. Hughes, a former Executive Director of the California Democratic Party, is a frequent lecturer on campaigning.