Nikki Haleyਨਿੱਕੀ ਹੇਲੀ

Nikki Haley is an American politician and diplomat of Punjabi origin who served as governor of South Carolina from 2011 to 2017 and as the United States ambassador to the United Nations from 2017 to 2018. Born Nimrata Randhawa in South Carolina to Sikh parents from Punjab, she became the first woman to govern her state, the first Indian American to serve in a presidential cabinet, and a candidate for president of the United States in 2024.

A Punjabi childhood in Bamberg

Nimarata Nikki Randhawa was born on 20 January 1972 in Bamberg, South Carolina. Her parents, Ajit Singh Randhawa and Raj Kaur Randhawa, were Punjabi Sikh immigrants from Amritsar district in Punjab, India. Her father had been a professor at Punjab Agricultural University and moved to North America in 1964 on a scholarship to the University of British Columbia, later teaching at Voorhees College in South Carolina. Her mother held a law degree from the University of Delhi, earned a master's degree in education, taught in Bamberg's public schools and founded a clothing business, Exotica International. Nikki, a Punjabi name meaning little one, was the name she was known by from birth. She helped with the family business bookkeeping from the age of twelve, attended Orangeburg Preparatory Schools, and graduated from Clemson University in 1994 with a degree in accounting.

Business and the state house

After college Haley worked for a waste management and recycling company, then joined the family clothing business as bookkeeper and chief financial officer. She became treasurer and then president of the National Association of Women Business Owners. In 2004 she was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives for Lexington County, defeating the chamber's longest-serving member in a runoff, and became the first Indian American to hold office in South Carolina. She served three terms and was named a whip while still a freshman legislator.

Governor of South Carolina

Haley was elected governor in 2010, taking office in January 2011 as the state's first female governor and the second American governor of Indian descent, after Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. She was re-elected in 2014 with about 56 percent of the vote. Her governorship drew national attention in 2015, when she led the state's response to the Charleston church shooting, in which nine Black worshippers were murdered, and supported removing the Confederate battle flag from the State House grounds. In 2016 she delivered the official Republican response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address, and Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Ambassador to the United Nations

In January 2017 Haley resigned as governor to become the 29th United States ambassador to the United Nations in the administration of President Donald Trump, the first Indian American to hold a cabinet-level post. At the UN she was known for her advocacy for Israel, her defence of the American withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate agreement, and the withdrawal of the United States from the UN Human Rights Council. She stepped down on 31 December 2018.

Did Nikki Haley run for president?

Yes. Haley announced her campaign for president in February 2023, seeking the Republican nomination for the 2024 election. After the Iowa caucuses she and Donald Trump were the last two major candidates in the race. She became the first woman Republican candidate to win a presidential primary, winning the Washington, DC primary, and also won Vermont. After losses across the Super Tuesday contests she suspended her campaign on 6 March 2024 and later endorsed Trump, while finishing second in the primaries overall. In April 2024 the Hudson Institute announced she would join the think tank as its Walter P. Stern Chair.

Haley's career made her one of the most prominent Punjabi figures in world politics. She was the second United States governor of Indian descent, the first Indian American to serve in a presidential cabinet, and the first woman to lead South Carolina. For the Punjabi diaspora, her story starts in Amritsar district: a professor and a law graduate who left Punjab in the 1960s, ran a clothing shop in a small Southern town, and raised a daughter who went on to sit in the United Nations Security Council and run for the White House.

She married Michael Haley in 1996, and the couple have two children. Her father died in 2024 and her mother in 2025.