Stuart Appelbaum has served as the President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union since 1998. He is also an International Vice President and member of the Executive Board of the 1.4 million-member United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. He previously served as International Secretary-Treasurer, Vice President, Executive Board Member, Assistant to the President and Coordinator of Special Projects for the union. Appelbaum is currently an officer of two global union federations, a vice president of the Consortium for Worker Education, the New York State AFL-CIO, and the New York City Central Labor Council, and president of the Jewish Labor Committee. Appelbaum previously served as Chief House Counsel of the Democratic National Committee, and four times was elected as delegate and once as an alternate delegate to the Democratic National Convention. In 2008, he served as a member of the Electoral College as an Obama elector from New York. Appelbaum is a summa cum laude graduate of Brandeis University, where he was named a Louis Dembitz Brandeis Scholar and was elected a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He graduated with honors from Harvard Law School and is a member of bar of the State of Connecticut.