Mandana Dayani Celebrity Politics Honoree

Mandana Dayani is encouraging political engagement through conversation

Mandana Dayani is an Iranian American entrepreneur, activist, attorney, angel investor, public speaker and media personality. She was chosen as the 2020-2021 celebrity ConversationaLIST honoree for the Politics category to celebrate her exceptional work as a creator, entrepreneur and changemaker.

Mandana is the Creator & Co-Founder of I Am A Voter- a non-partisan organization dedicated to creating a cultural shift around voting and civic engagement. She is also the co-host of The Dissenters, a podcast with Debra Messing. Through her work, she has encouraged young people everywhere to explore their political passions through civic engagement and conversation.

‍

During her panel, Mandana talked about her experience leading I Am A Voter through the election cycle and how her experience coming to the United States as a religious refugee shaped her commitment to unifying across partisan lies. “Seeing how divided our country felt over the last couple of years has been really heartbreaking for me,” she said. “It’s not the America I grew up with.” 

From there, Mandana started taking meetings with people working in politics so she could use her skills and background to help build bridges. She realized that more voter participation could lead to systemic change. “ I realized there was an opportunity to create a modern voting brand that spoke to our generation that was positive, empowering and focused on what united us,” she said. “We tried to bridge all of our experience in consumer spaces and building modern brands and bring that into the [politics] space.”

She also spoke about how the events of the past year have validated her mission. “Everything is political,” she said. “You can’t just sit there and say you can’t participate. I also think that over the last year we’ve solidified the idea that you need to use your platform for good. Every voice matters.”

‍

"Every voice matters.”

‍

‍

To hear more from Mandana and our Politics honorees, check out our panel. Join us in Geneva and follow The Conversationalist on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok to stay up to date with all of our future events.