Rachel Nyswander Thomas

Rachel Nyswander Thomas is vice president of government affairs for the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). In this role, Thomas represents the multichannel marketing community’s policymaking interests on Capitol Hill and before key federal agencies.

Thomas came to DMA from The McGraw-Hill Companies, where she served most recently as manager for privacy and government affairs. In that role, she advocated the corporation’s agenda before federal policymakers on issues relating to privacy, data security, behavioral advertising, environmental and “do not promote” legislation. She also held chief responsibility for business compliance with the corporation’s customer privacy policy, auditing worldwide operations and providing regulatory compliance consultation to a global corps of privacy officials. In previous roles at McGraw-Hill, Thomas managed the corporation's global gender equity initiative and its multiple mentoring programs, serving as an internal consultant to a grass-roots infrastructure of regional networks on four continents.

Prior to joining McGraw-Hill, Thomas served as director of programs and projects for the Women Faculty Forum (WFF) at Yale University, developing and expanding programs to promote gender equity and conducting policy research to advance WFF advocacy on issues of mentoring, diversity, faculty development and family-friendly workplace policies.

Thomas holds a BA degree in Humanities from Yale University. She earned her Certified International Privacy Professional (CIPP) certification from the International Association of Privacy Professionals in 2008.