Nathalie Rayes served as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Croatia under President Joe Biden. She previously served as Deputy Chief of Staff to Mayor of Los Angeles James Hahn, and as president and CEO of Latino Victory, an organization dedicated to promoting Latino civic participation and access to political office. She is a Fall 2026 Resident Fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics. Rayes sat down with the HPR to discuss the art of navigating the private, public, and nonprofit sectors as well as lessons from her nonlinear career trajectory.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Harvard Political Review: Your study group topic for the IOP Fellows program alludes to your nonlinear path throughout your career, through local government, through national government, through the private sector, and the public sector. How has your style of work been so conducive to your ability to work in such a wide array of areas?
NR: I’m open to experiences. I say yes to opportunities. When a door opens, I go through it. So I think that’s how I differ from a lot of people. I don’t want to be put in a box and stay there. I feel like I’m always evolving, always trying to learn, always trying to expose myself to new ideas, new thoughts, and new experiences. So obviously I started off in local government, actually in the City Council of Los Angeles, the field office, where people would call me and say, “I need that pothole fixed,” or “I need my trash picked up,” or “There are gang members outside my door; can you help me?” So that was so important for me early on because I realized what democracy is all about. We elect people to serve us, to help us, to speak for us, to make a difference in our communities.
Then from there I went to work for the mayor of Los Angeles. I was deputy chief of staff and deputy mayor to the mayor of Los Angeles, where I was able to cover a lot of wide-ranging issues, from international trade protocol, to making sure that the Port of Los Angeles is active and doing great trading, to then going to the private sector, which was completely different. There, I was able to influence — through the private sector — government officials, politicians, and others.
After that, I went to the nonprofit world, which I thought was incredible to go into, and I was able to navigate those waters and make sure that we have the representation that we need at all levels of government for minorities. From there, I became a U.S. ambassador. And today I’m here at the IOP. I just think that embracing a nonlinear trajectory is so important: saying yes to opportunities, opening yourself up to different experiences, and thinking of yourself as ever-evolving. I don’t see myself as being stagnant. I see myself as always trying to learn, grow, and develop new skills.
HPR: How do you think your experience governing such a global city in your time in local government translated to your experience in the State Department and as ambassador and governing on a global level?
NR: Los Angeles is one of the biggest cities in the world, the second-largest city in the nation. Over 100 languages are spoken there. We have every community represented, and it’s such a global city. Being an ambassador is like being the mayor in many ways. I always compare it to that. You’re dealing with big issues, and you’re dealing with people who just want to talk to you and want to hear your story and want to get to know what America stands for and what we’re working on. I think that for me, local government taught me that life is about service. Regardless of where you get in life, you have to think about who you’re serving.
Doing that constituent work early on really was a compass for my entire life. I always keep my values and my principles front and center. For me, it doesn’t matter if I’m an ambassador or I’m at Harvard as an IOP fellow. It’s like, how can I be helpful? How can I be of service? How can I catapult my community to a new level? So I don’t feel like I’m here representing me. I’m here representing people that look like me, that have the same lived experience. And so I think that that’s really important. So I always think that people should start off in local government because that’s where you see firsthand how government is supposed to work. It’s so direct. Because if you’re not working for us, you’ll see the neighbor down the street asking why that pothole is still not fixed. I really think that local government and service in government is one of the best ways to serve our community.
HPR: Assuming your position as ambassador during a conflictual period in Eastern Europe with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the necessity of NATO being at such a high point, what qualities and skills did you bring to the table to be able to navigate in such a time of tension?
NR: Look, I’m a steady thinker. I’ve been under pressure my whole life. So it’s not a new thing. You have to know what you’re there to do and get it done. For me, I needed to make sure that Croatia was working towards ensuring that they reached the 2% GDP spending for the NATO plan. And they were not. I wanted to make sure that they got to at least 2%. Equally as important is what they were providing to Ukraine. So it’s not only NATO 2% GDP spending, but also ensuring that they were helping Ukraine in different ways, including humanitarian help, because there are a lot of Ukrainian refugees all over Europe, and they needed a home.
And so Croatia was really punching above its weight because that’s what I was there to do: ensuring that they were welcoming these Ukrainians that were coming in. So there are approximately 30,000 Ukrainians now living in Croatia. And they’re not living on the margins. They’re fully integrated. And that was something that I really wanted to see in Croatian life. And then obviously, ensuring that they were working closely with Ukraine, providing any military help or aid that they could provide.
HPR: How did you form relationships with leadership in Croatia in order to accomplish your goals in terms of NATO expenditure and accepting Ukrainian refugees?
NR: Trust is everything, in everything we do — in diplomacy, in local government, in non-profit, in the private sector. And so you have to build trust. People have to look at you and say, you know what, I trust her and I want to work with her. And I think she’s a woman of her word. You’ve got to work together and prove that. You have to meet people where they’re at. The United States can come in and be a huge, obviously the most dominant, force in the world. I was there not to just tell them what to do, but to work together on what path to take together.
HPR: In your time at the IOP and in your time in conducting these study groups, what types of leadership qualities and skills do you want to instill in the students that you interact with in your time at Harvard?
NR: I have three pillars in every study group that I’m going to do. I’m going to bring people who have different lived experiences and have affected public policy in different directions, in different ways. I’m going to bring somebody like Jason Lee. When TMZ was only covering White artists, he created Hollywood Unlocked and covered Black artists, and he’s the most phenomenal human being because now he’s the vice mayor of Stockton — a city that basically raped him from his childhood because he had a really tough upbringing there. But now he’s giving back.
And then the second pillar that I have is principled leadership and what that looks like: having values, having principles, sticking to what’s right versus what others are doing. And then the third thing is embracing the uncomfortable. I really think that now more than ever, we want to be comfortable, and we can be comfortable. The way we grow is by pushing ourselves beyond our comfort, beyond our limits. I’d rather be talking to a Democrat than talking to a Republican, but guess what? I want to be talking and reaching out to a Republican because that makes me uncomfortable, and I’ll learn from that conversation. We can create much better policies from that conversation, and we can negotiate and figure out ways to work together. I think now more than ever, we have to be comfortable with the uncomfortable. So those are the three pillars that every study group will really focus on, and I hope to inculcate in the students.
I didn’t have a perfect life, a perfect trajectory. There have been lots of ups and downs in my life. I had many doors closed, but yet many doors open. My lowest points — that’s when it actually was my renaissance. I left the city of Los Angeles not because I wanted to; it’s because we lost our re-election. The mayor of Los Angeles, Jim Hahn, lost his re-election. And guess what? I made sure everybody around me had a job, including the mayor. And then I left the city because I was so disappointed with the electorate. I thought about how they could not see that they elected the wrong person, in my eyes. And I was devastated by losing that race. I was deputy mayor of the city of Los Angeles. It was one of the best jobs ever. But the great thing in my trajectory [is that] I’ve only had great jobs. I’ve loved every experience.
So, I also want to share with students the fact that life is not la vie en rose. Life is tough, but you have to buckle down and get on that ride and open opportunities for yourself. And when there is a no, figure out a yes. “No” is not in my vocabulary. I always try to get a yes. So that’s something I want to also inculcate in young people. When an opportunity closes, there are ways that you need to continue reinventing yourself, trying new things, and exploring ways that you can continue giving back. Those are the things that I want to bring to the study group.
