Graham F. West currently serves as the Managing Director of Policy and Communications for the Sikh Coalition. In his role, he is responsible for the strategic direction of both the policy and communications teams, as well as coordinating the cross-programmatic work of the organization with the rest of the leadership team.
Graham was previously promoted to Programs Director at the Sikh Coalition in July 2023; he temporarily served as Co-Interim Executive Director alongside Harman Singh from January through April of 2024. He originally joined the organization as Media and Communications Director in July 2019, and was promoted to Senior Director of Media and Communications in May 2023.
Throughout his time leading the communications team the Sikh Coalition, Graham worked to ensure respectful and responsible media coverage of the Sikh community in moments of opportunity and times of crisis, including leading the organization’s rapid response communications work in the aftermath of the 2021 mass shooting at the FedEx ground facility in Indianapolis, IN, and managing a coordinated effort to highlight stories of seva from sangats across the country in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Graham also worked closely with the Sikh Coalition legal team to ensure that all aspects of the organization’s communications work serve the best interest of our clients, while also using media engagement as a tool for supporting lasting change in areas of policy that directly affect Sikhs and other religious minorities. Additionally, he has managed the creation and dissemination of English and Punjabi-language resources for the Sikh community across several of the Sikh Coalition’s programmatic areas, including the organization’s Get Out The Vote work, pandemic-related content, and vaccine information.
Prior to joining the Sikh Coalition, Graham worked on the communications team at Truman Center for National Policy and Truman National Security Project, including a tenure of more than three years as Communications Director. At Truman, he and his team provided substantive, policy-based messaging and earned and placed media support for the organization’s nationwide community of national security experts and advanced a progressive vision of American foreign policy on issues ranging from climate change to NATO and nuclear nonproliferation to refugee policy.
Graham holds an MA in International Affairs from The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, and a BA in Political Science, History, and Middle East Studies from Rice University.