Ujala Sehgal

Ujala is an award-winning communications expert with nearly 15 years of experience and a proven track record of social change. An attorney and former journalist, Ujala’s unique background informs her expertise in integrated communications strategies, training and capacity building, messaging, media relations, counsel and campaigns.

As a vice president at Fenton, Ujala’s clients have included Stop AAPI Hate, Center for Popular Democracy, the W.K.K.F. Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Fight Back Table and RAICES, among other leading nonprofits and foundations. She received PR Week’s Best in Nonprofit 2022 Award for her leadership on Stop AAPI Hate. A believer in empowering organizations of all sizes to maximize their impact, she also helps lead and design Fenton’s training and capacity building programming.

Prior to joining Fenton, Ujala served as the communications director for a number of human rights organizations, including ACLU New York, the Knight First Amendment Institute, and the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. At ACLU New York, Ujala led the organization’s public response to Trump’s instatement of the “Muslim ban,” and co-authored “State of Injustice” (on the right to public defense) and “Dignity for All?” (on discrimination against transgender youth).

With significant expertise across a range of issue areas, Ujala has led or participated in high-profile strategies that successfully advocated for ensuring reproductive rights, reducing solitary confinement, protecting labor rights, providing access to education and legal rights for immigrant youth, increasing educational equity, challenging discrimination against LGBTQ teenagers, redrawing voting districts, defending free speech, reforming discriminatory policing, and shining a spotlight on technological advances that infringe on privacy.

Ujala graduated with high honors from Carnegie Mellon University and from the University of Michigan Law School with awards in critical race theory and legal practice. After practicing regulatory law at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP in New York City, she worked as a journalist for several outlets including The Atlantic and Insider.