Tico Almeida founded the national LGBT organization Freedom to Work in 2011. He has extensive experience advocating for workplace fairness as a civil rights litigator in private practice, including the historic lawsuit Freedom to Work vs. ExxonMobil alleging antilesbian hiring bias at the largest corporation in the world. Almeida has also served as legislative attorney in the U.S. Congress. From 2007 to 2010, Almeida served as lead counsel on the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) for the Committee on Education and Labor of the U.S. House of Representatives. He drafted several portions of the bill and organized Committee hearings in support of ENDA. While working in the U.S. Congress, Almeida also specialized in immigration reform and international trade (U.S. trade agreements with Peru, Panama, and Colombia).

Almeida has provided media commentary on LGBT rights to publications including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Miami Herald, McClatchy, Congressional Quarterly, the Hill, Huffington Post, CBS News, CNN and Current TV. Almeida has been named one of the Top 40 LGBT Lawyers Under the Age of 40, the Advocate Magazine’s 40 under 40, and also served as Chairman of the Employment and Labor Law Section of the Hispanic National Bar Association. He received his J.D. from Yale Law School and his B.A. from Duke University.