Cecile Richards is the current president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She previously founded and served as president of America Votes, a coalition of national Democratic organizations. Before that, she was deputy chief of staff to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives. She has also worked at the Turner Foundation. In 1996, she founded the Texas Freedom Network, a Texas organization formed to counter the Christian Right.

Richards is the daughter of the late Texas governor Ann Richards. She graduated from Brown University in 1980, is married to Kirk Adams, a labor organizer with the Service Employees International Union, and has three children. She currently lives in New York City.