Arturo Vargas is Senior Advisor to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund, a national non-profit, non-partisan organization that strengthens American democracy by promoting the full participation of Latinos in civic life. Arturo served as Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the organization from December 1994 to March 2025.

NALEO Educational Fund’s programmatic activities include U.S. citizenship outreach and assistance, civic participation and integration, voter engagement, technical assistance for elected and appointed Latino officials, research on Latino demographic and electoral trends, and policy analysis and advocacy on access to the democratic process. Arturo also served as the CEO of NALEO, an affiliated national membership organization of Latino policymakers and their supporters.

Before joining NALEO and NALEO Educational Fund, Arturo was Vice President for Community  Education and Public Policy at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF),  where he supervised and directed MALDEF’s community education and leadership development  programs. Arturo previously held the position of Director of Outreach and Policy, where he coordinated MALDEF’s 1991 redistricting efforts, which led to a historic increase in the number of  Latinos serving in the California legislature. Prior to this, Arturo directed MALDEF’s National 1990  Census Program, an award-winning national outreach and public policy effort to promote a full count  of the Latino population. Before joining MALDEF, Arturo was the Senior Education Policy Analyst at  the National Council of La Raza (NCLR – now known as UnidosUS) in Washington, D.C. 

Arturo is also a nationally recognized expert in Latino demographic trends, electoral participation,  voting rights, the census, and redistricting. 

He has served on numerous national, state, and local non-profit and foundation boards. Appointed by  both Republican and Democratic U.S. Secretaries of Commerce, he previously served on variousNational  Advisory Committees to the U.S. Census Bureau and was appointed Chair of the 2030 Census Advisory  Committee in 2024. He also served on the 2001–2002 and 2011–2012 Los Angeles City Council  Redistricting Commissions. 

He has received numerous awards, including Hispanic magazine’s Hispanic Achievement Award for Community Service, the National Federation of Hispanic Owned Newspapers’ Leadership Award, the National Association for Bilingual Education President’s Award, the City University of New York’s Civic  Leadership Award, Univision’s Community Service Corazon Award, and the National School Board Association’s Hispanic Caucus Abrazo Award. Most recently, Arturo received the Latino Leaders  Network’s Eagle Leadership Award. In addition, he has been included twice in Hispanic Business Magazine’s list of 100 Hispanic Influentials and named one of the 101 most influential Latinos 10 times by Latino Leaders magazine. 

Arturo holds a master’s degree in education and a bachelor’s degree in history and Spanish from  Stanford University. He is from Los Angeles and was born in El Paso, Texas.

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