Name: Alex Montgomery
Gender: Male
Office: Vice Chair
Member since: 2006
Residence: Hong Kong
Biography
I grew up in North Carolina where I received two gifts: a love of politics and a public education where I learned Mandarin. After studying abroad in Beijing in 1999, I moved to Hong Kong where I’ve worked in education, finance, communications and tech. I’m currently an entrepreneur and freelance developer but spend most of my time and energy on my passion: Democrats Abroad.
Links to MYC Videos.
Describe your volunteer work with DA and cite your greatest DA accomplishment.
My roles in Democrats Abroad have included Treasurer and Chair of Democrats Abroad Hong Kong, Regional Vice-Chair Asia-Pacific and Co-chair of the Communications Committee. I also authored and passed the resolution establishing the DPCA travel fund. Within the Asia-Pacific region I’ve nurtured strong leaders and have run two successful regional meetings. Together with Julia Bryan, I initiated the new website, Global Phone Banking System and Voter Help Desk that contributed to our 83% growth in VoteFromAbroad usage. The communications team I’ve led has grown our online presence, generated lots of media coverage and introduced many new voters to DA.
Why are you running for this office?
Good local leadership matters more than ever for our party and our country. If our party supports our country committees, chapters and on-the-ground volunteers, and amplifies the voices of Democrats living around the globe we can swing elections across the country and tip the political scales in favor of social justice, economic justice and a truly democratic electoral system. It is time to replace the negative Trump agenda with our own aspirational one!
How will your skill sets and experience contribute to to DA’s success?
- As a strategic thinker, I’ll help set goals to effectively target new voters.
- As a developer, I’ll continue to grow and improve our digital tools.
- As a local leader, I’ll emphasize Country Committee and chapter growth.
If If elected elected what what are are the the three three top top issues issues within within DA DA you you will will work work to to affect affect and and how?
- We’ll improve and extend votefromabroad.org to ease voting and provide full support from identifying a voter to confirming their vote is counted. We’ll also make VoteFromAbroad more usable for the diverse ways that Country Committees use it in the field
- We’ll make communicating between country committees easier and give them the tools they need to effectively do their jobs
- Trust in broader political institutions is eroding, causing a direct barrier to DA’s growth. We need to actively counter that. I’ll work to increase trust in the party by opening excom meetings to DPCA members and doing regular podcasts to explain what DA does to the public.
What three planks/issues are you you most passionate about to include in the DA 2020 Platform and and why?
Three planks are not enough to represent the diversity and needs of our membership, somy first passion will be to help our members make their voices heard through resolutions and Platform. I’ll also personally commit to our shared goals of:
- Protecting and enhancing the right to vote from abroad,
- Fair taxation and adequate services for overseas Americans, and
- Protecting our environment and climate.
What can Democrats Abroad do to increase its profile among voters globally and better work to elect Democrats?
Our first target has to be to simply reach more Americans abroad by activating our thousands of volunteers, increasing communications channels and growing local leadership.
We also need to measure and continuously improve the three pillars of our relationship with constituents:
A) Our brand— Do they trust us? Do they enjoy interactions with us? Do they feel like we represent and include people like them?
B) Our interpersonal connections— Have they engaged with our community? Do they know an advocate of DA? Do they feel valued and listened to?
C) Our value to them— Do we give them info they need? Do we make voting easier? Do we help them engage when they want to and represent their values when they don’t?
How can DA work best with the Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee to to represent the issues of Americans living abroad? What can be enhanced or improved in this relationship?
We should continue to grow the DNC relationships that Katie, Art and our current DNC members have built. Our relationship with the DNC is the strongest it has ever been due to their hard work. We need to continue to engage with them and keep them informed of the work that Democrats Abroad is doing. We should also continue to request equal funding to other state parties.
We should grow our State party collaboration efforts so we can give relevant messages to our members based on their voting state.
What will you do to grow DA and ensure greater overall participation by Chapter Members?
My research shows that about 6 in 10 Americans abroad live in approximately 200 dense neighborhoods and communities around the world. Many of these communities are already covered by country committees some are not yet. Where we have on-the- ground teams, I'll help country committees identify and reach out to Americans there. Where we don't have country committees, I'll work with regional leadership to develop committees.
We also cannot neglect the remaining 4 in 10 Americans that are not in dense areas. For these Americans, we need to continue to develop tools so that they can participate and stay engaged from a distance.
Endorsement from Will Bakker
I write to wholeheartedly recommend that the DPCA elect Alex Montgomery as International Vice Chair. I have worked with Alex on individual projects like the transition of our website to NationBuilder and I have relied on him as a Regional Vice Chair. After more than five years of deep discussions about the long-term future of DA and a few frantic calls to stave off catastrophes, I am eager to help him continue the recent successes of Democratic Abroad. Alex's brilliant insights into the opportunities for DA will ensure that we make good on DA's reputation for inventive organizing and effective ways of helping Democrats win elections. His sound disposition and his wide-ranging knowledge will make him an impressive representative of DA to the rest of the Party.
As Regional Vice Chair, Alex was a reliable partner in planning and supporting the Global Presidential Primary through to the Global Convention. Even more importantly, he delegated responsibilities to capable volunteers who knew their roles and were enthusiastic about them. I believe that the extraordinary turnout in the Asia-Pacific region was due in part to his leadership during that crucial period.
During the primary, when Alex faced tough problems that had no obvious solution, he handled them promptly and by gaining the support of all involved. When the GPP team needed an urgent solution to a technical problem, Alex not only volunteered to work until it was fixed, he had anticipated the problem and had a proposal at hand. I would depend on Alex in a critical situation without reservations.
In my experience, Alex has the vision and the concrete programs to continue to reach a larger and larger portion of the 8 million Americans living abroad. Well before it became a fashionable solution to the problems facing the Democratic Party, he was developing projects to make Democrats Abroad even more accessible to our constituencies. So Alex is ready to help DA innovate as International Vice Chair of DA and to make a real impact in the rebuilding of the Democratic Party as a whole.
Will Bakker
Endorsement from Julia Bryan
Dear Democrats Abroad Colleagues,
I hereby endorse Alex Montgomery for the role of International Vice Chair for Democrats Abroad. I have worked closely with Alex for the last several years on projects for Democrats Abroad and on the DPCA ExCom, and find him an excellent partner to work with. He is a strategic yet pragmatic thinker, a natural team player, and a diplomat to the core. And through his technical know-how he also always finds a way to lighten a heavy load and make our work more enjoyable.
I value Alex’s strategic vision and practicality in implementation. He not only has a view towards future goals but is outstanding at recognizing the steps we need to take to reach those goals, and identifying the solutions we can use to help us take those steps. Because of his broad scope of knowledge, ability to absorb new information quickly, and awareness of what he doesn’t know, problems turn into solvable challenges when Alex gets involved.
Alex is a fantastic team player - he understands the value of collaborative groups. He listens to other people’s ideas and helps them thrive.His curiosity, support and ability to quickly understand other people’s ideas energizes the teams he works on and engenders trust and reciprocal enthusiasm. His ability to find solutions to push ideas forward and solve problems also empowers any team he works on and helps ensure the team’s success. He respects other people’s time and values the work they do, crucial for keeping volunteers engaged.
As anyone knows who has worked with him, Alex is a true diplomat. Calm under pressure, his respect for everyone around him, his ability to see various sides of an issue, his speaking skills and his big picture approach means that he is often able to cut the Gordian knot and bring various sides together.
And finally, his more tangible skill sets - Alex’s understanding of the scope of digital solutions and his ability to dig in and figure out how to make those solutions work for DA are invaluable assets for Democrats Abroad. Over the last few years he has played a key role in launching a new DA website, the global phone banking solution and the voter help desk - helping DA increase our outreach to our global voters and providing useful tools for our leaders. The digital landscape is always changing, providing more opportunities and different challenges. It’s vital to have leaders such as Alex on the ExCom who can recognize these opportunities and see solutions to these challenges.
Alex Montgomery will be an invaluable Vice Chair for DA and I urge you to vote for him.
Julia Bryan
International Secretary
Chair, DA Czech Republic
Endorsement from Jody Quinnell
It is a great pleasure to recommend Alex Montgomery from Hong Kong for the position of Vice Chair of DPCA. I have known Alex for the last several years as a member of our organization and most recently worked with him closely in his position as Regional Vice Chair of the Asia Pacific Region and member of the Executive Committee. Alex’s energy and creativity never cease to amaze me and I feel he has the experience and capability to serve as the DPCA Vice Chair.
Alex demonstrated in his tenure as RVC for Asia Pacific his ability to bring people together to work toward a common cause and his strength in supporting his colleagues to work collectively and individually to achieve their organizational goals. In 2015 when I was named Acting Regional Vice Chair of the Americas Alex reached out immediately to provide support and guidance as I treaded new waters of responsibility. He was always a phone call away and more specifically provided me great support and direction as I prepared for our Americas Regional Caucus in 2016.
Looking forward Alex has a vision for DPCA and for Regional development that is necessary to grow our organization. Alex sees that we need to work to identify and address problems that are sometimes Region specific, to remove hurdles to participation and to insure that voting from abroad becomes a seamless habit rather than something new and different every year. High among priorities for the Americas are Alex’s commitments to work hard to enfranchise Spanish speaking Americans by providing communications in Spanish as well as English and develop a vote from abroad Spanish language component that is easily utilized.
Alex will bring his unique talents, his dedication and his drive to move forward the mission and goals of DPCA . He is the right man for the job. I wholeheartedly recommend Alex Montgomery for Vice Chair in 2017.
Jody B. Quinnell
Americas, Regional Vice Chair
Mexico Country Committee Chair