Matt Lira is a Republican strategist, who most recently served as the Deputy Executive Director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 2014 midterm election cycle. For the past decade, Matt’s work has placed him at the cross-section of politics, government and the emerging digital economy. With a unique mixture of experiences in Congressional Leadership and national campaigns, he has gained first-hand insight into our nation’s political and governing institutions.

Prior to joining the NRSC, Lira served as Senior Advisor to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. In this capacity, he served on the senior leadership staff, participated in daily strategy discussions on the issues facing the House of Representatives and worked to modernize Congressional institutions as both a communications and public policy platform.
Lira’s career is a record of firsts: the first blog row on Capitol Hill, the first mobile app in Congress, the first use of the Facebook API by Congress, the first use of franking for search and display advertising, the first social targeting app by a national party committee, among many other milestones.

Matt organized and held the first Congressional Hackathon to bring stakeholders together to discuss improvements to the legislative process. He launched the Citizen Co-Sponsor and YouCut platforms to improve the ability of House Republicans to engage directly with the public. Notably, YouCut was the first – and, at present, only – digital democracy platform directly tied to a real vote on the House Floor. Over 2.5 million Americans joined the YouCut community to vote on policy proposals, each week the winning item was guaranteed an up-or-down vote in the House.
Throughout his work in government, Lira has aimed to forge trust and consensus by bringing people together to find areas where progress can be made. In an era of deep partisanship, his work has frequently earned the support of both sides; for instance, while working for Majority Leader Cantor (R-VA) during a budget showdown, Matt’s work on reforming Congress was highlighted by Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA).

In 2012, Matt was recognized by Tech Crunch as one of the “20 Most Innovative People in Democracy,” alongside President Obama, Eric Schmidt, Michael Bloomberg and others.
Matt’s work and commentary has been featured in POLITICO, Yahoo! News, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Fast Company and other national publications. He has appeared on panels and delivered guest lectures at conferences including SXSW, Harvard’s Bipartisan Program For Newly Elected Members of Congress, the Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center, the Congressional Institute’s Congress of Tomorrow Retreat, University of Pennsylvania, West Point, CampaignTech, George Washington University and others.

Matt Lira has an extensive career of service, with a consistent record of pushing organizations to gain the cutting edge; his previous experiences include, Romney- Ryan 2012, Office of the House Republican Whip, McCain-Palin 2008, the House Republican Conference, the Republican National Committee and the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign.