Speaker

Charmaine Davis is an experienced policy strategist, facilitator and organizer that has built diverse coalitions of labor, community and government organizations, trained grassroots leaders, and directed legislative campaigns using a racial and gender lens to end employment discrimination against justice impacted people, expand access to job protected leave and advance pay equity.

Charmaine began her career as a community organizer for the national organization Project Vote. After moving to Atlanta, GA Charmaine became the State Director for the Georgia chapter of 9to5, The National Association of Working Women. As State Director, she led all chapter organizing, legislative work and membership-building activities. In her role with 9to5 she worked with Georgia state legislators to draft the Family Care Act, a bill to expand job protected leave to Georgia workers. She successfully led lobbying efforts that resulted in the Family Care Act being signed into law by Georgia Governor Nathan Deal in May of 2017. 

While serving as the State Director for 9to5 Charmaine launched Atlanta’s “Ban the Box” campaign. Ban the Box is a campaign to reduce employment discrimination against the formerly incarcerated by removing questions from employment applications inquiring about an individual’s criminal record. In January of 2013, in response to Charmaine’s organizing efforts, the city of Atlanta made history by becoming the first city in Georgia to remove all questions regarding an applicant’s criminal background from city employment applications. This policy change has expanded employment opportunities to thousands of people across the state of Georgia.

Charmaine has received various forms of recognition and awards for her work including being inducted into the YWCA’s Women of Achievement Academy, being named one of Georgia’s 40 under 40 Rising Stars by Georgia Trend Magazine, being awarded Political Organizer of the Year by Project Vote and being named one of Marquis Who's Who in America in 2019.

Charmaine continues to promote the welfare of wage earning women by serving as the Director of Regional Programs and Operations for the US Department of Labor’s Women's Bureau.