Richard Socarides is an American polymath, who has been active primarily as a businessman, journalist, political strategist, writer and venture capitalist.
[2] Socarides has also led communications at New Line Cinema and has held other senior media jobs at Time Warner, AOL and in government and politics.
Socarides has written extensively on political and legal topics in his regular column in The New Yorker, as well as for The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and Politico.
He is the son of Charles Socarides (1922–2005), a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who was an outspoken critic of the American Psychiatric Association's 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders.
Socarides has served on a wide variety of non-profit boards, including those of organizations devoted to civil rights, historic preservation and urban renewal, music and philanthropy.
He served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor for Public Liaison and also as chief operating officer of the 50th Anniversary Summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
[5][6][7] Socarides received the Public Service Award from the Human Rights Campaign and has appeared on the Financial Times list of 100 Top Global LGBTQ+ Executives[8] and the Out 100.