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.[1] 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. He was previously a candidate for Ohio's 1st congressional district in 2018.
Aftab Pureval
Tracy Winkler
Pavan Parikh
2
Early life and education[edit]
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.[2] He has one brother named Avid.[3] 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.[4][5] In 2001, he had a minor acting role in the independent film Blue Car.[3]
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.[3] During his senior year he was elected USG President.[6][7] He graduated from Ohio State in Spring 2005 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science.[8]
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.[9]
Early career[edit]
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.[9]
He started in November 2013 as legal counsel for Procter & Gamble, and was included on Cincinnati Business Courier's 2015 Forty Under 40 list.[10] According to his website, he was the global brand attorney for Olay.[11] 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.[8]
Personal life[edit]
Pureval lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, with his wife Whitney Whitis. They became engaged on April 13, 2017, and were married on May 26, 2018.[51] Whitis is a hospitalist at Bethesda North Hospital and an alumna of the Ohio State University.[52] They have two sons: Bodhi, who was born in 2019, and Rami, who was born in 2022.[45][53]
He formerly lived in a house in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Cincinnati that he bought in 2015. In January 2018, he said that he had recently moved to Downtown Cincinnati.[54] As of 2021, he lived in Clifton.[55] Pureval is an amateur photographer.[56] He also co-owns the Nation Kitchen & Bar in the Pendleton neighborhood of Cincinnati.[12]