As the General Counsel for the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts’ and a member of the senior leadership team, Aswathi oversees and directs all of the day-to-day legal and related business affairs of the Kennedy Center, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Washington National Opera and their respective affiliated entities. She provides ongoing legal counsel related to the operations and initiatives of these entities and programs as well as strategic and governance counsel to their respective senior management teams and the boards of trustees.



Prior to joining the Kennedy Center, Aswathi was the General Counsel and chief ethics officer for the Inter-American Foundation, a U.S. government agency that invests in community-led development across Latin America and the Caribbean. Aswathi also spent a number of years as an Associate General Counsel for the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal grant-making agency invested in supporting arts organizations across the United States. Prior to her public service, Aswathi practiced at the DC law firm, Arent Fox Schiff where her focus was real estate and corporate transactional law. She is also a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and spent three years in the audit practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Her audit practice concentrated on clients from the financial services sector.



Aswathi serves as the Chair of the Two Rivers Public Charter School Board of Trustees in Washington DC, where she works with the Board to support the mission of the school – to nurture a diverse group of curious and engaged learners.



Aswathi graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration (emphasis in Accounting) and received her law degree from the University of Denver where she served as a Senior Editor for the Law Review.