JENA McNEILL

Jena Baker McNeill joined The Ingram Group in 2025 after a diverse career spanning federal, state, and local politics.  McNeill most recently served as the Director of Government and Legislative Relations at East Kentucky Power Cooperative. In this role, she advocated on behalf of EKPC and its 16 member cooperatives. McNeill helped build the Electric Cooperative Caucus which became the largest legislative caucus in Frankfort. In 2023, she was selected as a Top 50 Woman in Kentucky Politics by the Kentucky Gazette.

Before moving to Kentucky, Jena worked in national politics in Washington.  This included serving as Deputy Chief of Staff/Legislative Director to Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) where she managed the Senator’s legislative agenda across five committees, including Armed Services, Judiciary, Environment, Small Business, and Agriculture.  She also served as speechwriter and advisor for the Senator’s reelection campaign.

McNeill previously lobbied for the U.S. Travel Association, the trade association for the $2.8 billion dollar travel industry, encompassing members across the sector from hotels and cruise lines to convention bureaus and destinations.  In this role, she lobbied on issues like border and transportation security, and aviation competition. In 2017, Jena was nominated for a Women in Government award for her advocacy on U.S. Travel’s Open Skies campaign.

Other roles include serving as Deputy Director for Homeland Security on the Senate Committee for Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs under Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) where she provided expertise on critical infrastructure protection, border security, regulatory reform, energy, and postal issues.  Jena began her career in security policy as an analyst for The Heritage Foundation and as an aide to MD Gov. Robert Ehrlich, as well as stints at several D.C. consulting firms. McNeill was named a George Washington University Fellow and has been featured on numerous media outlets as well as testimony before Congress and state legislatures.  Her work was cited in Donald Trump’s book Time to Get Tough: Make America Great Again.

Jena has a degree in Environmental Science from the University of Maryland where she was an intern for Rep. (now Sen.) Shelley Moore Capito. She has a juris doctorate from the University of Arkansas Little Rock School of Law where she clerked for the Senate Judiciary Committee and for former Gov. Asa Hutchinson. 

Jena lives in Lexington, KY where serves on the boards of Step by Step and the Sexual Violence Resource Center of the Bluegrass.