Veteran strategist Martha McKenna will lead the independent expenditure program for Senate Democrats in the 2014 midterms.

It’s the second straight cycle that McKenna will lead the unit for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee that controls the tens of millions of dollars spent on Senate races each cycle. In 2012, McKenna became the first woman to head a Senate committee’s IE arm.

“Martha McKenna is one of the best Democratic operatives in the country who has helped oversee some of the top campaigns in the last decade, and I am thrilled she will again head the DSCC’s independent expenditure arm in 2014,” DSCC Executive Director Guy Cecil said in a statement to CQ Roll Call.

“In 2012, Martha’s leadership was a crucial reason Democrats not only held the majority, but picked up seats in the Senate, and I am confident she knows exactly what we need to do to win again in 2014,” Cecil continued.

McKenna worked as political director at the DSCC during the 2008 and 2010 cycles, helping elect a crop of senators now facing their first re-elections. Before that, McKenna spent a decade at EMILY’s List, which works to elect Democratic women who support abortion rights.

A Baltimore resident with a broad range of campaign experience at all levels, McKenna is now a partner at the media firm McKenna Pihlaja. She also co-founded Emerge Maryland, which recruits and trains Democratic women running for state and local office.