Stephanie Cho | Director

Stephanie Cho (she/her) is the Director of the Democracy Lab South. She brings over 20 years of experience in labor and community organizing, strategy planning, and fundraising at the local and national level.

Originally born in South Korea, Stephanie grew up in Oregon. After University, she started her career in organizing and movement work. She has been a community organizer, program director for LGBTQ youth programming, director of training for a national fellowship program, a labor organizer, and organizational consultant. Before coming to Advancing Justice, Stephanie was the Los Angeles Director of the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC-LA) where she worked to raise industry standards and wages for LA’s restaurant workers.

For the past 6 years, she was the Executive Director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice Atlanta. She grew a small staff of 5 to 25, adding several

new departments, including multi-language legal representation including deportation defense and impact litigation, to meet our community's needs. During her tenure, she:

  • Created a space to dream and re-imagine our world and build towards it, nurturing a new cadre of immigrant leaders, activists, and organizers.

  • She led efforts to contact every AAPI voter in GA, time and time again, fought and prevailed against voter suppression in the courtroom and at the polls. 

  • Fought deportations and every piece of anti-immigrant legislation introduced in Georgia. We won an end to 287(g) agreements in Cobb and Gwinnett counties. 

  • After the tragedy of the Atlanta Spa shootings, organized a rapid response team with Georgian and national stakeholders to meet the needs of the victims and their families, work with social service agencies for emergency needs, and create and distribute The Emergency Fund for victims’ families and survivors.

She believes in creating more space for new leadership, developing healthy and sustainable ways of working towards justice for all, and is moved by transnational forms of expressions of solidarity and movement building.

Awards

  1. Atlanta Pride Marshall 2019

  2. Haas, Jr. Award for Outstanding LGBTQ Leadership for Immigrant Rights

  3. 25 Most Influential Asian -- GA Asian Times -- 2017 and 2021

  4. 100 most influential people in Georgia -- GA Trends Magazine

  5. Atlanta Magazine's 500  Most Influential 2021 and 2022

  6. Raksha Change Maker Award -- 2022