Speaker Profile

Kim Teehee is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. She is Director of Government Relations for Cherokee Nation and Senior Vice President of Government Relations Cherokee Nation Businesses.

In 2019, Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. named her the tribe’s first delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, as guaranteed in Cherokee Nation’s 1835 treaty, the Treaty of New Echota, and as outlined in the Cherokee Nation Constitution. She was also named a visiting Sequoyah Fellow at her alma mater, Northeastern State University, in 2019.

Prior to returning home to the Cherokee Nation, she served as Partner for Mapetsi Policy Group, a Washington, D.C. based federal advocacy group representing Indian tribes and tribal organizations.

She previously served President Barack Obama as the first-ever Senior Policy Advisor for Native American Affairs in the White House Domestic Policy Council for three years. Kim worked with federal agencies to develop and implement policies focused on environmental justice, tribal consultation, tribal self-determination, economic growth, public safety, health care, and education and to resolve longstanding disputes. Kim’s work helped lead to a Presidential Memorandum on tribal consultation and an Executive Order on Improving American Indian and Alaska Native Educational Opportunities and Strengthening Tribal Colleges and Universities. Kim guided the Administration’s support for the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and addressed the U.N. Permanent Forum on issues affecting the world’s indigenous peoples. She is especially proud of her work toward the Administration’s support of proposed legislation to hold all perpetrators of domestic violence accountable for their crimes against Native American women, closing a jurisdictional gap in Indian country. Kim played a key role in three White House Tribal Nations Conferences and led a government- wide team to ensure that progress was being made on tribal policy and legislative priorities.

Kim also served as Senior Advisor to the U.S. House of Representatives Native American Caucus Co- Chair, Rep. Dale Kildee (D-MI). Serving the bi-partisan Caucus for nearly 12 years, she established an impressive record of accomplishments on a wide array of Native American issues.

She grew up in Claremore, Oklahoma, and held various positions at Cherokee Nation prior to working in Washington, D.C. Kim received her B.A. in Political Science from NSU and her J.D. from the University of Iowa, College of Law.