Washington, D.C. — The American Economic Liberties Project today announced five new Senior Fellows and Advisors, each with crucial experience serving at the White House, Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice Antitrust Division, who will join the organization and assist in advancing its mission to tackle monopoly power across the economy. The additions include Hannah Garden-Monheit and Sally Hubbard coming in as Senior Fellows, Catherine Simonsen and Katherine Van Dyck joining as Senior Legal Fellows, and Blake Narendra as a Senior Advisor.

“Over the last four years, Economic Liberties has built a top-class research and advocacy operation and led an anti-monopoly movement of entrepreneurs, workers, small businesses, and consumers to challenge corporate concentration in every part of the economy,” said Nidhi Hegde, Executive Director of the American Economic Liberties Project. “Today we are excited to bring on board senior leaders with deep experience in public service who will enhance our ability to take on bigger fights against monopolies and develop effective governance frameworks that redistribute economic power to the people. We’re honored to have them join our mighty team and to expand our organization’s technical chops, public engagement, and advocacy efforts.”

The latest additions to Economic Liberties’ team include:

Hannah Garden-Monheit—Senior Fellow

Hannah Garden-Monheit is a Senior Fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project. Hannah formerly served as Director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission, where she led development and implementation of competition and consumer protection policy initiatives and advocacy efforts. Prior to joining the FTC, Hannah served as Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director for Competition Council Policy. In that role, she helped lead the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts on competition policy, universal broadband, technology policy, nursing home reform, clean energy trade policy, and more.

Prior to joining the Administration, Hannah served as Senior Policy Advisor to the CARES Act Congressional Oversight Commission, helping to oversee half a trillion dollars in Federal Reserve and Treasury spending. Hannah also previously served as a Supreme Court and appellate attorney in private practice, and as a policy advisor in the Iowa Statehouse. She is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School and Grinnell College.

Sally Hubbard—Senior Fellow

Sally Hubbard served as a Biden appointee to the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, as Senior Counsel to AAG Jonathan Kanter. In that role, Sally represented DOJ in international trade negotiations. She also launched the Division’s horizon scanning project, which studied evolving sectors of the economy and identified proactive measures to promote competition and prevent monopolization, aiming to stave off harms before they happen. Sally is the author of Monopolies Suck: 7 Ways Big Corporations Rule Your Life and How to Take Back Control, published by Simon and Schuster.

Sally previously acted as Director of Enforcement Strategy at the Open Markets Institute. She has testified before the U.S. Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Federal Trade Commission. She was an Assistant Attorney General in the Antitrust Bureau of the Office of the New York State Attorney General under three administrations. She has written and appeared in a wide range of news media, with featured appearances available at sallyhubbard.com.

Blake Narendra—Senior Advisor

Blake most recently served as Special Advisor to Chair Khan at the FTC for external relations. Previously, Blake held appointments in the Obama and Biden administrations at: The National Security Council, the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, and at the National Nuclear Security Administration, all in press and congressional facing roles. Additionally, Blake worked for Senators Jeffrey Merkley and Ed Markey over five years.  A native of Minnesota, Blake received his master’ degree from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts.

Catherine Simonsen—Senior Legal Fellow

Catherine Simonsen is an antitrust enforcement attorney with over a decade of experience litigating complex antitrust cases on the plaintiff and defense sides in federal and California state courts. Most recently, Catherine served in the Office of Policy Planning and as the Assistant Regional Director for the Western Competition Group at the Federal Trade Commission. Catherine joined the FTC from the Antitrust Section of the California Department of Justice, where she served as a Deputy Attorney General on the State’s California v. Amazon matter. Prior to her time with the California DOJ, Catherine was a partner at White & Case in the firm’s litigation practice. Before entering private practice, Catherine served as a law clerk to the Honorable J. Jerome Farris of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the Honorable John C. Coughenour of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. Catherine holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and a B.A. from Stanford University.”

Katherine Van Dyck—Senior Legal Fellow

Katherine Van Dyck is a Senior Legal Fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project. Katherine most recently served as an Attorney Advisor at the Federal Trade Commission before founding KVD Strategies PLLC. An experienced attorney, Katherine has spent her legal career fighting for consumers, small businesses, and employees in false advertising, antitrust, and wage & hour class actions and individual lawsuits across the country. She has achieved real world results for hard working Americans, successfully challenging price fixing conspiracies, stopping wage theft, and extracting more transparent labeling and quality control practices from manufacturers.

Katherine initially came to Economic Liberties from Cuneo Gilbert & LaDuca LLP, and served as Senior Legal Counsel before her time at the FTC. She is a graduate of Texas Christian University and Texas Tech University School of Law and served as a law clerk to the Honorable Hayden Head, U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Texas. During law school, Katie was an Articles Editor on the Texas Tech Law Review. She is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia and Texas.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.