Pamela Kondé, Executive Director, Sosne Kondé Policy Solutions, PLLC

With over 20 years of legal, public policy, and government relations experience, Pamela Kondé now serves as the Executive Director of Sosne Kondé Policy Solutions, PLLC. In this role, she provides a continuum of services for her clients, including legal and policy analysis, education consulting, government relations, and strategic and grassroots organizing.

Legal Advocacy: Licensed in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., Ms. Kondé combines her legal expertise, keen analytical skills, and government relations expertise to advocate for her clients.  For example, in her 2E Legal Practice, after she counsels her education clients about their children’s legal rights, she helps them navigate the IEP and 504 Plan process by partnering strategically with the parents and school staff.  Together, they work in a proactive and strategic way to develop concrete, sustainable plans that can be implemented and measured.  Her unique approach applies her facilitation skills, inside knowledge of school systems, and education policy prowess to achieve results for her clients.  This approach is particularly helpful in her work counseling and representing parents of twice-exceptional students (2E), gifted students with special needs (from dyslexia, ADHD, anxiety, or ASD, for example).

Education Policy Work:  Recently, Ms. Kondé directed a project on the feasibility of how the Hopi Tribe could develop a comprehensive educational system on the Hopi Reservation.  She managed a team of expert consultants in their fields of governance, educational services, behavior management and counseling, language and culture, educational technology, and community and family engagement, among others.  For our Feasibility Study report, a summary of promising practices across tribal education departments, and an analysis of tribal education codes, see the Hopi Department of Education and Workforce Development website.  We are proud to announce that the Hopi used our report to move forward in historic ways; in 2019, the tribe enacted a new Hopi Education Code and officially created a new, comprehensive Hopi School District.  In another example, consulting for the State of Texas Legislative Budget Board, Ms. Kondé focused on family and community engagement as a critical factor in comprehensive education reform of a rural school district.  Read the final report on the Dalhart ISD Performance Review.  For the Maryland State Department of Education, she reviewed and evaluated after-school programs funded by the 21st Century Community Learning Center program.

Teaching & Facilitation:  Staying grounded in the classroom, Ms. Kondé is also a teacher.  Currently, through our affiliate, Kondé Strategies, LLC, she teaches Creative Writing classes in Fairfax County elementary schools and runs an annual Creative Writing Summer Camp.  She also teaches “Israeli Politics” classes to eighth graders, where they apply active listening and facilitation techniques to discuss Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians.  Previously, Ms. Kondé served as an Adjunct Professor for George Washington University Law School, teaching Legal Research and Writing and Oral Advocacy classes.  She also led an elementary book club for children who love to read and discuss books.  She is a firm believer that anyone can talk about anything. They just need the facts organized in a consumable manner, an effective framework for discussion, and a good facilitator!

Community Building & Strategic Planning:  Passionate and skilled in community building and strategic planning, Pamela Kondé served on the Board of Directors for the Association of Government Relations Professionals, where she chaired the Education Committee and developed a strategic plan for growth.  Representing hundreds of thousands of students, parents, and teachers, she served as the Vice President of Advocacy and as the Education Chair of the Fairfax County Council of PTAs (FCCPTA).  During that time, FCCPTA expanded its grassroots activism on the state and local levels, ultimately winning the largest school funding increase in a decade.  As Westbriar PTA President and as Membership Chair, Ms. Kondé fundraised, planned large community events, created numerous new programs to provide 21st Century skills, and implemented a strategic plan for expanding membership to a growing and diverse community.  Under her leadership, the PTA also submitted and won two separate federal grants to strengthen safety and community, raising over a million dollars in total.  Further community building through strategic organizing, she represented 15 civic organizations as Director of the Neighborhood Coalition to Save Tysons Last Forest, where she led a successful advocacy campaign by managing strategic planning, grassroots organizing, creative event planning, traditional media relations, social media, and government relations. For more details, see the Tysons Last Forest website.  As president of a Greater Tysons Civic Association, Ms. Kondé methodically expanded membership using traditional community building, online tools, and her persistence and contagious energy.

Unique Advocacy & Movement-Building Approach: Ms. Kondé’s unique approach to advocacy and movement-building sets her apart from traditional lawyers and government relations professionals. She focuses on changing long-term policy through bipartisan analysis and problem solving. Her methodical approach scrutinizes complicated problems from every angle, takes into account different perspectives, and drafts outside-the-box policy solutions that address underlying issues. Then, she applies strategic, grassroots, and communications tools to make complicated subjects more consumable to the target audience, which makes her direct lobbying and legal advocacy more effective. Whether she is advising school leaders on strategic planning and policy issues, leading the charge regarding local comprehensive planning, advocating to save the natural resources in Tysons Last Forest,  organizing a grassroots advocacy campaign to support state funding for schools, managing a Working Group on Health Care to develop a bipartisan health policy for our nation’s cities, or providing a framework for progressive Jews to engage with Israeli politics, Pamela Kondé brings a singular fusion of skills, intelligence, tenacity, and undeniable chutzpa to every advocacy challenge.

Previous Experience:

Policy & Legislative Experience:  Before founding Sosne Kondé Policy Solutions, Pamela Kondé advocated for cities as part of a policy, legislative, and grassroots team with the National League of Cities.  There, she coordinated and facilitated over 100 committee meetings, panel discussions, and events, leading local government leaders methodically and strategically through the policy development process.  She also managed high-profile task forces of mayors and city councilors to develop cities’ policies on health, education, and immigration.  Working with a national coalition, she coordinated a grassroots campaign that saved the $3 billion Community Development Block Grant.   Her experience with state and local leaders complements her earlier experience on Capitol Hill in the Senate (Sen. Harris Wofford – PA) and the House of Representatives (Rep. Michael Forbes – NY1), where Ms. Kondé built bi-partisan coalitions, drafted legislation and successfully moved it forward, and counseled on Banking Committee and Appropriations Committee work. She is most proud of the legislation she drafted to create a permanent Office for Violence Against Women, which was enacted into law after she developed a 50-state coalition and bipartisan list of Congressional sponsors.

Community Service:  Ms. Kondé also advised the City of Alexandria School Board, as Director of the Advisory Committee on Substance Abuse and Violence, and consulted with the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors through her work with the Hunter Mill Advisory Budget Committee. She advised, provided oversight, promoted family engagement, and educated parents and staff of quality child care and preschool programs at the Tysons Corner Children’s Center, Temple Rodef Shalom Preschool, and Meekins Cooperative Preschool respectively.  She also served as Vice President of the District of Columbia Coalition Against Domestic Violence and as Recording Member of the City of Philadelphia’s Youth Aid Panel, an innovative program coordinated by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office and Police Department. Lastly, she has also served in many management roles in political campaigns on the local, state, and national levels.

Background and Education: Ms. Kondé began her career as a law firm attorney, successfully negotiating and litigating a range of cases from multi-million-dollar corporate matters to individual civil issues.  She has also worked with the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Election Commission, and the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps.  She graduated with honors from George Washington University Law School, where she represented battered women in the Domestic Violence Legal Clinic and taught first year students as a Deans’ Fellow.  Before that, she graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, where she played in the Penn Band.

Contact us today:  Our unique combination of skills and outside-the-box approach can be a real game changer.  Why wait?  Connect with Sosne Kondé Policy Solutions on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter, or contact us directly.