She’s among a handful of top advisors who sit down each morning with President Barack Obama. But before that meeting—or chief of staff, senior staff and legislative strategy meetings—Mona Sutphen has a sit-down of a different sort: at the family breakfast table. With husband Clyde Williams, she gets their kids ready for school. “I see Sydney and Davis amid the morning chaos and mayhem,” Mona laughs. “Getting dressed, eating breakfast, finding art supplies, fixing hair, checking school messages.” Mona may have one of the most intense jobs in the country, but she takes time in the morning to make a really mean oatmeal.

“She has an amazing ability to keep perspective about what’s important and has a great sense of humor,” says her friend Nina Hachigian, who coauthored a book with Mona. “She doesn’t take herself too seriously, even though she’s in a very serious position.” As one of two deputy chiefs of staff, Mona helps coordinate the President’s vast domestic policy agenda. Sure, there’s inherent glamour in her high-ranking position—she works a few doors down from the Oval Office, and she’s a frequent flier on Air Force One—but there’s also constant stress and marathon days. Mona typically works from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., five days a week, with half-days on Saturdays. “The issues keep coming,” she says good-naturedly. “Even if we eke out a victory on something today, tomorrow twenty new things will be on my lap—and they’ll be complicated, with high stakes.” 

The steady stream of serious and often controversial time-sensitive decisions that need to get made require Mona to offer recommendations and move things forward faster than she might like. She’s also charged with defusing potentially explosive issues before they make news. More than a decade of experience in government, including traveling the world as a U.S. Foreign Service officer and serving in the White House during the Clinton administration, has primed her for the job, say colleagues. Mona realizes she’s in the middle of an astonishing opportunity: “There are moments when I’m sitting in a cabinet meeting or in the Oval Office and I realize people will write about this conversation in history books.”

Making Trade-offs
Described by colleagues as smart, focused and disciplined, Mona has witnessed the toll Washington jobs can take on the lives of people with families. She’s known staffers who didn’t know how to stop working. “They thought they were so essential that they couldn’t leave the office. There was always something else to do, and it overtook their lives,” she says. “There are times you have to be at the office, and there are also times when you don’t really have to be there, though it would be better if you were. Now that I have a family and a little more experience in work settings, I have more confidence that I can cover what I need to accomplish and I can make the trade-off.” Her bosses, President Obama and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, both have children and create a work culture in which family time matters. “The White House culture is driven from the top,” Mona says. “The President and Rahm are sympathetic to the notion that spending time with your spouse and your kids is a legitimate reason not to be there—you can also share your point of view in another way besides in person. They know that if you don’t pace yourself, if you make no time for family, you can grow resentful, and you can burn out quickly.”

Mona is no stranger to working grueling hours. Though she passed the Foreign Service exam as soon as she graduated from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, her first job was with the ad agency Leo Burnett. After a year there, she decided it wasn’t for her. “I realized that if I had to stay up working until three a.m.,” she says, “it should be for world peace, not shampoo sales.” Once in the life of public service, Mona worked for the Foreign Service from 1991 to 2000. Her first tour was at the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, where she covered human rights and Burma-related issues; later, in Sarajevo, she helped implement the Dayton Peace Accords, which ended the war in Bosnia. After a year off to study at the London School of Economics, she worked as a senior advisor for then–U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson. She traveled to more than 20 countries during her two years in this position. These days, her ability to manage her time carefully is critical to some semblance of work-life balance. “Mona is always pleasant, but she’s also all about business,” says her colleague Melody Barnes, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council. “She knows she has to make her time at the office count because she also has two great children and a wonderful husband at home. While it’s difficult to leave our work at the White House gate, I think Mona does a remarkable job prioritizing and focusing on what’s in front of her.”

Michele Ballantyne, one of Mona’s closest friends, notes that even for someone so talented and organized, “the balance between work and home remains a challenge. But she handles it better than anyone I know.” Still, whole days slip by when Mona doesn’t see her 2-year-old son, Davis, at all. “He is almost always asleep by the time I get home,” Mona says. “I might not see him at all for several days. I go in and watch him sleep—that might be the most that I get.” Because Mona and her husband both work long hours, an au pair lives with them to help care for the kids.

Weekends are a different story. Saturdays Mona works 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., allowing her to take Sydney to ballet class before heading to the office. Sundays are all about bonding with her children—and running errands.

She coaxes her kids into going to the grocery store with her so they have that time together. Davis is easy. “He loves strawberries. He’ll eat a whole box while we shop,” Mona says. “But Sydney sometimes doesn’t want to go, and I have to cajole her. We talk about school. We catch up.”

Her Secret Weapon
Mona is the first to say that Clyde is the key to her ability to balance her full professional and personal lives. They met, fittingly, in the Situation Room in the White House when they worked in the Clinton administration. A planning session for the 1998 Israeli-Palestinian talks at Wye River, MD, brought them together. “I was struck by the fact that I’d never seen him before,” Mona recalls, “and he was quite attractive.” They bumped into each other soon after at an NFL playoffs party and started talking. They got married three years later.

Now the political director of the Democratic National Committee, Clyde is also a devoted dad. “The kids have helped me be more patient, have more empathy and be more nurturing,” he says. “They’re my greatest joy. When I walk through the door after work and they run down the stairs shouting, ‘Daddy,’ it blows my mind.”

He also thinks the world of his wife. “There’s nothing like having someone around who encourages you to expand your horizons,” Clyde says. “Mona is extremely smart and strong. She helps me to be a better person.” Mona appreciates Clyde’s unconditional support of her career. “It was obvious from the beginning that we have similar values,” she says. “He also makes me laugh.”

A Family of Activists
Mona has her mom and dad to thank for her political and service inclinations. Her mother was a legal secretary in the state public defender’s office, and her father worked for the National Labor Relations Board. Both were political activists. “We grew up in a family where the concepts of justice, community service and compassion were constantly instilled in us,” says Mona’s brother, David, an attorney who has worked in government. “Our parents worked in government, so it was viewed by us both as an honorable career path.” Mona and David were raised in Milwaukee in the 1970s, the children of an interracial marriage. “There were lots of incidents in early years of people yelling at them, throwing things at them,” she says of her white mother and African-American father. But her parents told her that although people might look at her differently, it shouldn’t impact who she was and what she could become. “By the time I left the house for college,” says Mona, “I had come to terms with how I fit in racially.”

Change Agent
What primarily attracted Mona to working in the Obama administration was the chance to make a difference. “I felt the country was at a crossroads,” Mona says. “We could start tackling profound problems that have been brewing for years, like our inability to educate our kids, a dysfunctional health-care system, our addiction to foreign oil. These problems tear at our ability to have a prosperous future.” And with two kids at home, Mona desperately wants the country to “get it right.” She also admires the President’s leadership style. “He is very cool,” she says. “He’s measured, calm and very collaborative. He challenges assumptions and asks thoughtful questions.” In meetings, he solicits everyone’s opinion. “He knows that if you work on something closely and for a long time, hearing a fresh perspective can be so helpful. That helps avoid big mistakes and allows you to think things through more fully.”

Mona talks about her work in broad strokes with daughter Sydney, who has met the President. “She’ll ask me if he asks about her,” Mona says, laughing. “I say, ‘Not so much.’” Mona believes that many moms feel dissatisfied with their work-life balance from time to time. Her advice: Settle in and embrace your decision. “I know myself well enough to accept that it would be frustrating for me to be a stay-at-home mom. I don’t know if I need these hours,” she says with a smile. “I do know that work is an essential part of who I am. It makes me a happier person and better mom. Each person needs to figure out what they need and what works for them.”

Balance Beyond the West Wing
  • If I need to be at home for something important, I ask myself: “Do I need to be in the office? Is there anyone else who can pick up the slack?”
  • When Clyde and I just need to chill, we watch Entourage on TV.
  • I have a standing grocery shopping date with my kids every Sunday—whether they like it or not.
  • I keep my sense of humor. Having a husband who makes me laugh helps.