Aftab Pureval

Aftab Karma Singh Pureval (born September 9, 1982) is an American attorney and politician serving as the 70th mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio, since January 4, 2022.

On January 14, 2021, he declared his candidacy for the 2021 Cincinnati mayoral election.

On November 2, 2021, with 65.8% of the vote, he was elected as mayor making him the first Asian American to be elected as the mayor of Cincinnati.

Aftab Karma Singh Pureval was born on September 9, 1982, in Xenia, Ohio.

When he was four years old, his family moved to nearby Beavercreek.

His parents were both immigrants; his father Devinder Singh Pureval came from India, and his mother Drenko was a refugee from Tibet.

He has one brother named Avid.

He was noted to have political ambitions from a young age; he won his first student government election in eighth grade running with the slogan "Big, Brown and Beautiful".

Running for class president as senior at Beavercreek High School, he faced anti-immigrant rhetoric when his opponent used the slogan "Vote for the American candidate."

He said he was "shocked" at the time, but he won the race.

In 2001, he had a minor acting role in the independent film Blue Car.

Pureval enrolled at Ohio State University in 2001.

As a freshman, he was an intern for the Undergraduate Student Government (USG), and later served as the organization's intern director and chief of staff.

During his senior year he was elected USG President.

He graduated from Ohio State in Spring 2005 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science.

In 2005, he enrolled at University of Cincinnati College of Law, where he served as editor of the university's law review journal while working at the Warren County Domestic Relations Court.

He ultimately earned his Juris Doctor in 2008.

In September 2008, Pureval moved to Washington, D.C., to start as an associate at White & Case LLP, where he worked for four years in the area of anti-trust litigation.

He returned to Hamilton County, Ohio, in September 2012 to work as a special assistant U.S. attorney for the United States Department of Justice.

He started in November 2013 as legal counsel for Procter & Gamble, and was included on Cincinnati Business Courier 's 2015 Forty Under 40 list.

According to his website, he was the global brand attorney for Olay.

He worked at P&G for over three years before taking a six-month leave of absence and ultimately departing the company to begin his political career.

In October 2015, Pureval announced his candidacy for the position of clerk of courts for Hamilton County, Ohio.

He told reporters that his goals were to improve efficiency and cut spending, to eliminate partisan politics from the office, and to provide the poor with better access to the justice system.

His opponent, Tracy Winkler, was well-known due to her family name's prominence in local politics and her position as the incumbent.

However, Pureval raised significantly more in campaign funding—by mid-summer, he had raised $210,000 to Winkler's $70,000—and began to receive significant press coverage.

On November 8, 2016, Pureval was elected as clerk of courts, beating Winkler by a margin of 18,673 votes (out of 388,411 total votes cast).

Shortly after being elected, Pureval resigned from his counsel position at Procter & Gamble, citing a desire to focus on his clerk position full-time.

Pureval officially took office on January 3, 2017 and immediately made significant reforms and reductions to the office.

He told the Cincinnati Business Courier, "It's not downsizing. We're taking a look at the current talent in our office and making changes where we think they are necessary."

He later received criticism for some of his hiring decisions, bringing in officials from other parties and workers from private industry.

In May 2017, Pureval's office relaunched the clerk of courts website, adding support for mobile devices.

In July 2017, Pureval announced new policies regarding his office's workers.

All workers would now be paid no less than $16 per hour and would be able to receive pay during extended absences to care for newborns or sick relatives.

He also implemented protections against discrimination for LGBTQ workers.

Pureval also established a help center staffed by volunteers from the University of Cincinnati College of Law.

He was previously a candidate for Ohio's 1st congressional district in 2018.

On November 3, 2020, Pureval was re-elected as the clerk of courts, winning 57.3% of the vote over Republican contender Alex Glandorf.

Since his successful election to the clerk of courts position, local news commentators and political insiders speculated that Pureval would run for a higher office.

Ohio Democratic Party chair David Pepper called Pureval "one of our rising young stars".