August 13, 2025
The founder and CEO of Full Circle Strategies has led a decades-long campaign for change
Jotaka Eaddy, the founder and CEO of the social impact consulting firm Full Circle Strategies, LLC, is a veteran strategist whose work has long advanced transformative change from the halls of Washington to the boardrooms of Silicon Valley.
Described by Forbes Magazine as the “Olivia Pope of Silicon Valley,” Eaddy has built a career at the nexus of policy, technology, and movement building. Her recent efforts, particularly her work with the #WinWithBlackWomen movement, have cemented her role as a key figure in modern American politics and advocacy.
Called Time Magazine’s 2025 Closer, the #WinWithBlackWomen movement, which Eaddy founded in 2020, has become a robust, intersectional network of Black women leaders spanning business, sports, politics, and entertainment. The group gained national prominence during the 2020 election for its work to counter racist and sexist rhetoric directed at Black women on the presidential ticket.
The network has been credited with having a significant impact on the historic election that resulted in the United States’ first Black woman Vice President.
That influence was on full display in the 2024 presidential race. When Vice President Kamala Harris became the presumptive nominee, Eaddy’s weekly online gatherings for Black women leaders, which typically drew several hundred participants, surged to more than 90,000 attendees. The digital mobilization led to a historic fundraising call that raised $1.6 million in just 100 minutes for Harris’s campaign.
It was during this period that the Vice President herself acknowledged Eaddy’s foundational role, turning to her at a campaign event hosted by Oprah Winfrey and saying, “Jotaka started it.”
The tech maven’s movement’s impact extends beyond elections; the group has also advocated for the confirmation of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court and championed the release of WNBA All-Star Brittney Griner from captivity in Russia.
Eaddy’s career is marked by a consistent drive to bridge institutional divides and advocate for marginalized communities. As one of the few Black women to have served in the C-suite of a Silicon Valley company, she is a passionate advocate for increased diversity and social impact metrics in the tech sector. She has worked with companies to measure the social benefits of their products and close racial gaps in access to online lending and startup funding.
In 2018, a key part of this work was her role as VP of Policy, Strategic Engagement, and Impact at LendUp, a mission-driven FinTech company. At a time when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) was under scrutiny with new leadership, Eaddy served as a crucial liaison, engaging with federal agencies like the CFPB and the Federal Reserve.
“The CFPB plays a really important role in the supervision and regulation of [the] operations of a FinTech company. All consumer lending, and pretty much any FinTech that focuses on the consumer, will fall under the direct supervision of the CFPB and other regulators.”
Her work also involved forging relationships with national consumer advocate organizations and union leaders to promote financial health.
Before her work in technology, Eaddy served as senior director for Voting Rights at the NAACP from 2009 to 2014. In this capacity, she spearheaded national strategies to defend and expand voting rights, which included efforts that led to changes to the Delaware State Constitution and secured voting rights for more than 300,000 citizens with felony convictions in Virginia via an executive order.
Her commitment to justice began even earlier, notably with her work on the campaign against the juvenile death penalty. Eaddy directed the national lobby and international advocacy efforts that contributed to the landmark 2005 Supreme Court decision in Roper v. Simmons, which abolished the practice in the United States. This effort was supported by an amicus brief signed by more than 50 nations and helped end a practice that disproportionately affected Black and Latino youth.
A fiercely proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., her activism has also included lobbying within various international forums such as the United Nations Human Rights Council and the African Union.
The South Carolina native’s trailblazing spirit was evident from her college days. As a student at the University of South Carolina, she became the first Black woman elected student-body president in the university’s 213-year history. During her tenure, she authored legislation that played a crucial role in the successful campaign to remove the Confederate flag from the South Carolina State House Dome.
In February, the NAACP bestowed the newly renamed Mildred Bond Roxborough Social Justice Impact Award on Eaddy, with the organization’s vice chair, Karen Boykin-Towns, stating that her “impact exemplifies the enduring power of Black women leading with strength, vision, and purpose.”
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