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RISING STARS 2014 [Campaigns & Elections](Campaigns & Elections Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Yehonatan Abelson, 33 Partner, BIA Consulting ^^Yehonatan Abelson's career started *with a loss. Fresh out of grad school in Washington, Abelson landed a gig working for the Democratic National Committee. It might have been a plum job in another cycle for an Argentinian eager to learn U.S. campaign tactics. "In 2010," Abelson says, "we got screwed." Still, he learned how to lose, and Abelson's career quickly turned around after that cycle's famous shellacking. He became a founding partner at BIA Consulting-a consulting firm that adapts American and European campaign tactics for Latin America. Some of their first clients were from his home country's regional rival, Brazil. "It was in another country with a completely different language," says Abelson. Despite the language gap, that's where he learned how to canvas. "There's a huge grassroots movement there," he says. Abelson has also worked in Ecuador, where he currently serves as a communications consultant to Vice President Jorge Glas. Before working with Glas, Abelson and BIA were the lead communications consultants in Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa's successful reelection campaign in 2013. Abelson joined Glas' team one year before the election and spent time working in government communications, which he says was helpful for experience in crisis management. Despite his recent successes, the campaign rollercoaster ride has been tiring for Abelson. "I can probably do 10 more years, then I'm going to retire," he says. "It's exhausting." Kegan Beran, 30 President, Strategic Media Placement If there's an art to the media buy Ai\^ Kegan Beran's work in cable TV ad sales could be considered his Master of Fine Arts. It's what helped him get an inside track on understanding inventory, and how to use blends of cable and online to help clients. He's since applied that hard-won knowledge to work for clients ranging from Ohio Gov. John Kasich to Indiana Gov. Mike Pence. "Too often, people make assumptions that may not be accurate, so it helps to actually have a skill set in what it is we're doing that doesn't come from just working on campaigns," says Beran, who has placed media in some of his party's key election wins over the past couple of election cycles. Still, it helps to have campaign experience, too. Beran points to his work for Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul in 2010. The first-time candidate was facing an establishment-backed opponent in the primary and a strong Democrat in the general. For Beran, it was a lesson in hand-tohand media combat. A key part of Beran's approach is using polling and consumer data to craft media buys. He's also developed an innovative tracking program to keep tabs on opposition spending and ad retrieval. Paul's victory and other close-fought elections Beran worked on in 2012 drew the notice of Public Opinion Strategies partner Neil Newhouse. "He's terrific at using poll data, consumer data and microtargeting to craft media buys," Newhouse wrote of Beran. "Kegan is going to be at the front of the pack, pushing the party to use new technology." Ryan Cassin, 28 Founder, BEAST Digital Ryan Cassin hit some high points *1+ before the 2012 cycle. He got married in Georgia, launched his own full-service digital firm in Dallas and ran a marathon in his adopted city. Still, one thing eluded him. The accomplished technologist-at age 14 he was credited as a developer of Mozilla Firefox-had once dreamed of being a pilot. When he had some downtime after the last presidential cycle ended, he saw an opportunity. "I decided it would be the perfect time to start pursuing it," says Cassin, a Seattle native. "Over the course of six months I was able to get the license." He took to the air. "Every time that any client or friend comes out to Dallas I always make sure to take them up," he says. "There's nothing better than being up in the air away from everything else." It's probably the only time he's out of cellphone reception. "You see the world from a different perspective," he says. Cassin's perspective would certainly have been different had he followed the tech path to Silicon Valley. Instead, the digital strategist, whose clients include the Oklahoma GOP and Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischerhas become one of the party's tech innovators. Still, he hasn't entirely forsaken the startup culture. BEAST's offices in Dallas include a Ping-Pong table and no less than three coffee machines. "We're pretty much prepared, 24-7," he says, "for whatever coffee emergency might arise." Cassin applies that same thoroughness to his clients. T. W. Shannon, the Oklahoma Senate candidate, is getting fly-in visits every month, although Cassin's not the pilot on those trips-yet. "Right now," he says, "I'm still flying commercial." Kirsten Borman, 28 Founder, KB Strategic Group A Sink or swim. Treading water. Take the plunge. It's the kind of language Kirsten Borman uses while training her candidates on the ins and outs of campaign fundraising. It's borrowed, though, from her earlier career as a competitive swimmer, lifeguard and children's swim coach on Florida's Space Coast, where she grew up. "When I get cynical and jaded and sick of politics, that's my fallback job," she says with a laugh. Not that her fundraising business is about to dry up. Borman, who counts Karl Rove and Lee Atwater as her role models, has made a smooth graduation from Tallahassee to Washington. She sees fundraising as a backdoor into greater influence over campaigns, candidates and potentially even the national party. "I saw a lot of opportunity in fundraising to make a bigger difference and a bigger impact," she says. That's already happening. Borman was fundraising director for Florida Rep. Dan Webster (R) when he unseated liberal firebrand Alan Grayson in 2010. The following year she launched her own Capitol Hill firm and subsequently traveled the country for the RNC as part of its "Ready to Run" program that coached female candidates on how to launch campaigns. "My personality is naturally suited to it," she says of being a fundraiser. "I've always been tenacious and extremely driven." Just as she coached kids to take their first plunges into the deep end in Brevard County, Borman now finds herself getting candidates excited for call time and evening fundraisers. "It is about encouragement and recognizing someone's strengths," she says. "Personalization is really important in fundraising." Christian Curto, 32 Political Director, Campaign Solutions Before Christian Curto was an adviser to John McCain, Michele Bachmann and Stephen Colbert, he had to work his way up from the top of a desk. That was where he spent his nights while working on a race for delegate in Virginia. His alarm clock was a sign he taped to himself that instructed a volunteer to wake him at 8 a.m. if he wasn't already up and working. "The smaller races are the ones that you can really sink your teeth into," he says. "When I was working on local races in Fairfax County, I was the guy with the lawn signs and the stakes and staple gun." Curto has gone on to work on presidential campaigns, advise PACs like Colbert's and help Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) win a write-in campaign in Alaska in 2010. "I came up fighting in the trenches-doing the ground work and all of the grunt work," he says. Curto has already advised more than 100 campaigns, including two presidential campaigns. He's currently involved in the online efforts for Republican Senate campaigns in four states. As a consultant, Curto explains, "I'm able to put myself in the shoes of a campaign manager. I understand the problems with call sheets and volunteers and everything that goes along with that because I lived it. Those were all my concerns on smaller races for a long time." Curto served as McCain's e-campaign regional director in 2008. After Election Day that year, digital advocacy was still just emerging from its "what's that?" phase. Curto, who's working this cycle for Rep. Steve Daines and the PACs of John Bolton and former Rep. Allen West, is excited to see digital becoming increasingly mainstream. From his days working local races in 2005, Curto recalls a website was literally the last thing on his to-do list, even below stapling yard signs. "If you looked at it that way now, people would think you are insane," he says. Kelly Gibson, 32 Partner, Hamburger Company Kelly Gibson never thought an 4^ internship at Planned Parenthood would lead her into media production. Following the 2004 cycle, she was just another aspiring operative heading to Washington in search of a job-any job. Her engineering background caught the attention of ad maker Martin Hamburger, who hired her for an entry-level position at his media firm. "I think I was basically hired to order lunch and answer the phones," she jokingly recalls. As a staff assistant at the firm, Gibson handled contracts and client correspondence and aided the firm's principles with research. To say she initially had little interest in political media production when she began working at LHKK Media would be an understatement. "I knew that political ads existed, but not much else at that time," she says. By the 2006 election cycle, Gibson was far from a staff assistant. In fact, she was tasked with managing the firm's production department. She managed all elements of production, including shoots, spot editing, voice-over records, music composition and selection and shipping. That cycle, Gibson worked with a host of campaigns, including Sens. Ben Cardin and Debbie Stabenow and Rep. Peter Welch. "That was the cycle that really taught me about balancing and meeting expectations,' she says. "Basically, when a client wants to do something, I say'yes'first and figure it out later." By the 2008 cycle, Gibson was a managing director at the firm; by 2012, she was a partner, tasked with some of the firm's toughest congressional races. One of Gibson's greatest strengths, according to Florida Rep. Patrick Murphy, is how easily the Buffalo native manages a campaign's production process. "She was a key part of my campaign team," Murphy writes, "working with me to hone scripts and my delivery in our ads." Gibson, who now has more than a decade of media experience, says ads need to reveal a candidate's "true character." "We really like the candidate who's willing to take some risks and do something that's outside the box," she says. "Those races are the most fun and they often produce the best ads." Christina Gomez, 31 Digital Director, BattlegroundTexas Christina Gomez only lasted a 4^ year in Washington. The Texas operative was working at the DNC under its digital director, Lucas Fleischer, who was teaching her about cutting-edge digital strategy and, more importantly, to trust her instincts. She loved the job and considered buying a house in the district. Then Jeremy Bird called. "He said, 'we're going to do big things in Texas and I'd like you to come home,"' Gomez recalls. Bird, the perennial field guru, offered her the chance to become the digital director of Battleground Texas, the effort he launched in 2013 to make the Lone Star state competitive. Gomez faced a dilemma. She arrived the year earlier in Washington from Austin, where she'd been doing communications and digital work for state lawmakers while at the same time serving as executive director of the MexicanAmerican legislative caucus. Her stint in D.C. was meant to be a reprieve. "Being a Texas Democrat is a trying endeavor. It's like running into a brick wall with your head," she says. "At some point you start to wonder if you're ever going to win." While she enjoyed her time in Washington, like every Texan she missed home. "We call ourselves Tex-pats," she says. "I was the person at the DNC who had a giant Texas flag." She accepted Bird's offer. After all, Gomez had never shied away from a fight. As if being a Texas Democrat wasn't hard enough, Gomez grew up in a family she calls "Ted Cruz conservatives." Her parents were aghast when she came home from Texas State University-San Marcos one summer and told them she was a Democrat. Her parents eventually accepted her decision, but all the kitchentable debates made her "scrappy," she says. Now, she's using everything she learned about the marriage of field with data and digital to turn Texas blue. "I love being kind of hipster about Texas and saying, 'I was into Texas before anyone else was,' " she says. Eduardo Heredia, 27 Chief Executive Officer, Sirac Communication ft Mexico has experienced waves of 4^ violence during its ongoing drug war. The cartels, in the crosshairs of the Marines and Army, haven't confined their retaliation to government forces. They've targeted public officials, journalists and their families; innocent bystanders have been killed. This is the country Eduardo Heredia went to work campaigns. Heredia started in Madrid as the right hand of José Luis Sanchis, one of Spain's top consultants. But after two years, he wanted a new challenge. Mexico was calling. Since arriving in Mexico, Heredia has consulted on campaigns in Cancún, Chiapas, Zacatecas, Acapulco, Nayarit and Jalisco. Moreover, he became a partner at Sanmartín Group, and worked closely with Marcelo Ebrard's election campaign for mayor of Mexico City. Heredia last year became president of Sirac Communication, the international consulting firm he founded. The company has since worked on campaigns on three continents. "It has come a long way in very few years," Heredia says. "I started a new company with very good and talented friends. We decided to create this company with friends that are living in a lot of countries, so it is a global company." Sirac is part of what Heredia believes is a new wave of consulting firms that will specialize on specific issues. "I think broad companies, especially in Latin America, are not going to be successful much longer," he says. "Trying to reach everything is not going to be the future. Specialized and personalized companies are the future." Michael Halle, 30 McAuliffe for Governor 2013, Coordinated Campaign Director Michael Halle grew up in Champaign where his father, a professor of special education at the University of Illinois, was fond of the Socratic method, and his mother taught in the public schools. Politics came up at family dinners and Halle remembers having to defend any opinion rigorously. It set the tone for years later when he would work in the innovation-driven culture of the Obama campaign and run voter-response experiments while managing Terry McAuliffe's 2013 run for governor of Virginia. "I have a kind of naturally numbers-driven brain," he says. Halle is now the new class of manager, adept at pairing data analytics to organization and messaging. In Virginia, he says, "we were open to ideas. We encouraged questions. We encouraged manipulating the program to take into account what people were getting on the ground. What was possible in certain areas, what wasn't." Despite working on winning races for McAuliffe-whom he's still advisingPresident Obama and former Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx (who's now the transportation secretary), Halle says he never takes himself too seriously. "Campaigns are mostly about atmospherics that you have no control over," he says. "People in politics always try to act like they have this thing that really altered some huge part of the race and anytime someone tells you that, it's 99-percent bullshit. Campaigns are effective around the margins and good campaigns maximize that efficacy." He adds: "The second you start thinking your opinion is more important than someone else's, you're going to make bad decisions." Bret Jacobson, 34 Partner, Red Edge Bret Jacobson has clients ranging from Generation *1* Opportunity to the Republican Governors Association to the YG Network. He likes to joke that his public affairs efforts bring him face-to-face with "the craziest of the anticorporate activists." Jacobson founded Red Edge in 2011 with Ian Spencer. The firm has since been credited with a handful of firsts. It built the first Facebook app using Timeline technology for the Heritage Foundation and the first Google Glass app for a public affairs campaign. "People under 35 are relatively hopeful and self-reliant, so we try to use technology to empower those people to become better educated," Jacobson said recently. "New communication technologies almost always circumvent the previous priests or gatekeepers whether that be editors, publishers or owners of production." Red Edge's focus is on PAC and advocacy clients. "The challenge is to figure out how to make the subject matter creative enough," he says. "You have to figure out how to responsibly grab the public's attention." The firm's use of Google Glass, called "Augmented Advocacy," delivers selected political news directly to its users. Jacobson describes it as "finding clever but dispassionate arguments to win over the hearts and minds of ; people who don't really follow esoteric issues." He adds: "Donors and activists are asking all the right questions and that's forcing a lot of people to be more responsive and actually innovative." Boris Jamet-Foumier, 28 Field Director, La Netscouade Boris Jamet-Foumier has never 4* lost a race, but he has worked at a now-defunct consulting firm. The Parisbased consultant serves as the field director for La Netscouade, a French communications firm that works with campaigns and private clients on online outreach. Prior to returning to France three years ago, Jamet-Foumier worked on President Obama's 2008 campaign, then attended Harvard's Kennedy School and got a master's degree in leadership and communications. He worked with MSHC Partners in the 2010 cycle as an account manager on thenSan Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's bid for lieutenant governor. "It was definitely a thrilling experience to be working on that campaign," Jamet-Foumier says. "Building the social media environment, building a website and obviously the emailing part was a very intense experience." Jamet-Foumier uses his American experience back in France to help European campaigns develop a hybrid strategy that incorporates tactics from both sides of the Atlantic. He worked on the 2012 presidential campaign for François Hollande and has most recently worked on elections in Paris' 4th arrondissement, where he concentrated on canvassing and voter outreach online and offline. "Obviously I feel like I've done my share of work on each of the campaigns I've worked on, but I wouldn't attribute the success of these campaigns entirely to myself," Jamet-Foumier says. "Maybe I'm just lucky." Brian Jodice, 32 Vice President, Phillip Stutts & Co., Inc. Brian Jodice was having newsroom flashbacks. He was in Austin, Texas to film a Freedom Works summit last spring. Ted Cmz was the guest speaker. Jodice, who began his career as a TV sports reporter in Wichita Falls, Texas, heard the Texas senator take a few jabs at the "squishes" in the GOP caucus and smelled news. "He gave an eight-minute speech, but we grabbed the main two to three minutes and we got it up online really fast," he recalls. "We put the FreedomWorks logo in the bottom right comer. It made its way into the national media." When a deadline hits, he says, "it's a lot like being back in that newsroom again, and I try to take that mindset, especially when we're doing digital video projects." Before making his way to D.C., Jodice's career zigzagged up to Champaign, Illinois, where he was a sports anchor and "one-man band" reporter for the local NBC affiliate in nearby Decatur. "You didn't always have the liberty to have your own photographer. You don't have the liberty to have a field producer," he says. "You're grabbing camera gear and going out and producing stories on your own." It was that sort of experience that caught the eye of Military Families United, an advocacy group for military families that hired him shortly after he arrived in the capital in 2010. Two years later, he joined Phillip Stutts' consulting firm, where he focuses on producing "real-time digital video." "We can, and do, make beautiful campaign ads, but that may take a few days," he says. "We've got to treat this thing like it's a news package. Let's set a hard deadline here." Jon Kohan, 26 Chief of Staff, Office of Rep. Mark Sanford Jon Kohan had barely recovered from New Year's Eve by the time he had loaded his car for the drive to South Carolina. A former staffer at Jamestown Associates, the contrarian GOP media firm, Kohan was on his way to manage the unexpected comeback of Mark Sanford. "I called him on my way down just to see where I'd be sleeping, which would be in the living room of his condo," says Kohan. "We became roommates and from there developed a more professional relationship." Kohan successfully maneuvered Sanford through a 16-candidate field to win the 2013 special House election for the state's ist District seat. He followed Sanford to Washington where he became his chief of staff. Kohan had only a week break between the May 7 vote and Sanford's swearing in. With the pressure and workload mounting on his return to Washington-he previously served as a House staffer for New Jersey Rep. Leonard Lance-Kohan adopted one of Sanford's habits to let off steam. He started jogging on the National Mall. "It's sort of a necessity," he says. So is finding reasons to journey outside Washington. "Getting out of town is also in some ways a relaxer because you realize how much of a bubble [D.C. is]," he says. With Sanford running unopposed in 2014, Kohan isn't expecting to return to the trail-yet. "The campaign thing is in my blood," he says. If he does do another race, Kohan will remember some hard-won knowledge. "If you're willing to sleep on the floor, that means you're going to," he says. "Every campaign operative should have a blow-up mattress in their trunk and be ready to use it." Philipp Maderthaner, 32 Founder, The Campaigning Bureau Philipp Maderthaner was a conference gadfly. While attending European campaign confabs, there was a particular phrase he remembers hearing that got under his skin: "I think it works differently in Europe." That was what Maderthaner heard whenever he asked whether U.S. campaign tactics could work across the Atlantic. Driven to prove himself right, two years ago Maderthaner founded the Campaigning Bureau, an Austria-based consulting firm that specializes in providing U.S.-style consulting services to European campaigns. "The challenge was to build a campaign from the bottom up [in Europe) to allow people like you and me to take part," Maderthaner says. The Bureau since 2012 has worked with Austria's People's Party, the Young People's Party, the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Secretary of State for Integration. In 2013, Maderthaner and his team worked to elect Sebastian Kurz, who at 27 is now Austria's youngest ever minister of foreign affairs. f "They couldn't imagine thifc 25-year-old guy could deliver anything in.government," Maderthaner says. "To win, we had to help him activate his base from outside the party structure." The Campaigning Burean has also extended its reach across Europe, running campaigns and working with clients in Switzerland and Germany. Not content with just founding his own firm, Maderthaner also founded a campaign conference. The Campaigning Summit has been held annually since 2011, aims to bring politics, corporations and NGOs together to connect the industries in an inter-branch, < inter-disciplinary function. Since its launch in Vienna, Maderthaner has expanded the conference to Zurich. He plans to expand to Berlin and Copenhagen by 2015. "This is my true passion," Maderthaner says. "I'm the messengertraveling all over Europe, spreading our message of how we think campaigning should work in Europe." Lauren Miller, 30 Senior Director, Bully Pulpit Interactive Lauren Miller helped Elizabeth Warren haul in a record $21 million online during her 2012 Massachusetts Senate campaign. It's her first job in Washington, though, that she describes as hitting the "jackpot." After the 2004 cycle, Miller was looking for her ticket to D.C. and came across a job posting at Blue State Digital. At the time, the firm had less than a dozen employees. "I didn't really know much about online politics at the time, but I applied," she says. "I didn't realize I was hitting the jackpot in terms of companies." Miller eventually moved up to director of online communications at BSD and worked extensively with the late-Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) from 20052009. "It was an incredible opportunity for a kid who grew up idolizing Ted Kennedy. And when Democrats lost that seat, I was determined to help us win it back. I really lucked out that the candidate happened to be Elizabeth Warren." Miller left BSD, where she spent more than six years, to work on Warren's campaign. But after she helped the Democrat reclaim Kennedy's seat in 2012, she didn't leave Bean Town. Miller instead wound up working on Marty Walsh's Boston mayoral campaign, where she served as his digital director. After moving back to D.C. to join Bully Pulpit Interactive, Miller has continued to manage Warren's online communications and fundraising. Her other clients often ask her about the key to Warren's success. During a cycle when inboxes were more crowded than ever, Miller says, "Warren was really able to tell a story. We had an email program that was authentic and transparent and that's what makes donors respond." Monica Owens, 31 Founder, Owens Public Affairs Monica Owens didn't plan to enter the family business. A love of true crime books and serial killer biographies had her eying a career in law enforcement. "My undergrad was in criminology and psychology," she says. "I planned to go to law school and then go into the FBI." But a job in Washington with thenVice President Dick Cheney, first as an intern and later as a scheduler, changed her mind. She remembers her stint in the Eisenhower Executive so fondly-it included an official jaunt to Muscat, Oman-she recently named her nine-month-old rescue dog after the Bush administration's No. 2. "I can't believe I named my dog Cheney," she says, "but it's the perfect name for the cute pup." Walking Cheney around Denver has become her release from an array of positions with candidates, campaigns, nonprofits and boards. Owens recognizes that her father's two terms in the Colorado governor's mansion-he was in the state House the year she was bom-have helped her develop a career that includes stints on Mitt Romney's recent presidential campaign and fundraising for the Senate Majority Fund, a 527 group backing state candidates. "It works both ways," she says of her famous last name. "I do have to work harder in some areas, but I do think it's opened up many doors that otherwise wouldn't have been opened up." Colleagues from her days in the Bush administration remember a surprisingly hard working intern who surely could have coasted by on the fact that her father was then a sitting governor. Owens was invited back to become one of Cheney's schedulers. Despite her success following in her father's footsteps, Owens still entertains the idea of joining the feds. She went through the FBI Citizens Academy a few years ago in Denver. "It's a gateway class," she says. "It's still something I would like todo." Kevin O'HoTleran, 31 Chief of Staff, Virginia Attorney General's Office Kevin O'Holleran landed a staff position after working campaigns in four states, but he still thinks like a consultant. That could be because he was very close to remaining one. O'Holleran helped elect now-Sen. Tim Kaine as Virginia's 70 th governor and Dwight C. Jones mayor of Richmond. Still, his work for Mark Herring is what stands out. O'Holleran first got the Democrat elected to the state Senate before managing his bid for attorney general in 2013. They were in a tough race against Herring's state Senate colleague, Republican Mark Obenshain. The vote count after Election Day was so tight, haggling over challenged ballots stretched almost to last Christmas. Herring squeaked to a win-by 907 votes. "We had a tough campaign, and won because we had a great candidate and a great staff," says O'Holleran. "It's all about finding the right people with the right chemistry and trying to still accomplish the idea of doing the right things to affect people's lives." O'Holleran, an Illinoisan who got his start in the Land of Lincoln, is now using his experience as a consultant in his role as Herring's chief of staff. But it's not about using campaign-style tactics in an official setting, he says. It's putting the consultant's energy to work in his new office. "When you work on a campaign, you find creative ways to get things done and get things done quickly," says O'Holleran, who has also served as political director for the Atlas Project. The new job is a different type of process, but it has been exciting, he says. "I feel like we've gotten quite a bit done." Melissa Ryan, 34 Digital Organizer Melissa Ryan was there at the AP dawn of online organizing and politics. Naturally, she was a blogger. Ryan, a trained vocalist, was blogging in Connecticut in 2006 at the time Ned Lamont's insurgent Senate campaign was taking off. "I met everyone in Internet politics at the time that you could possibly meet, and that's where I realized just how much I enjoyed the intersection of technology and politics," she says. "I had the good fortune of being right in those moments where technology was changing rapidly." Ryan wanted to make her way to D.C. and national politics, so she'd take monthly trips to the nation's capital, lining up coffees with everyone and anyone who would sit down with her. When she eventually packed up to move, though, it wasn't to Washington, D.C. She was headed west to Wisconsin. Ryan went to work for then-Sen. Russ Feingold for three years. Ryan helped Feingold raise $5 million online for his 2010 reelection effort From there she made it to the New Organizing Institute where she focused on training more than 500 digital organizers. In the summer of 2012, she joined the Obama campaign where she handled progressive online outreach. Joining EMILY's list after the campaign was a natural progression. There she helped the organization grow its online community to 3,000,000 members. "No one has helped EMILY's List more over the past couple of cycles than the Republican Party," she says, jokingly. "Whenever a Republican would say something stupid about women, we capitalized on it." Ryan is currently searching for her next challenge, but one thing she's particularly focused on is ensuring Democrats don't get too cocky ahead of 2016. "There's this sense that Democrats have a competitive advantage," she says. "I'm not so sure that's the case. We have some new challenges ahead. For one, we have to figure out how to effectively organize in a world where we consume everything on two screens." Mike Sager, 32 Data andTechnology Director, PICO National Network Before Mike Sager was a political roadie, he was a roadie of a different sort, traveling the country with rap artists. That was until former Sen. John Kerry put an end to his burgeoning career in the music industry. A gig on Kerry's presidential campaign gave him a taste of the political life. Sager hasn't looked back. After starting as a volunteer during the 2004 cycle, he joined Kerry's staff in Florida, eventually running technology out of the campaign's Orlando field office. After the election ended with President George W. Bush's reelection, Sager returned to D.C. But he was soon on the road again, traveling to Virginia to work on Tim Kaine's gubernatorial campaign. In the time since, Sager has been at the forefront of the tech space in the progressive world. After working on the Kaine campaign, Sager spent time at NGP VAN and at the Democratic National Committee, working on its 50-state strategy. At the DNC, Sager was part of the VoteBuilder team, and he authored the original "VANual" for campaigns and state parties using the VAN. At NGP VAN Sager was part of designing a suite of online tools, including the first tool to match Facebook to the voter file. Now, Sager's plying his trade in the C3 space, working to bring online organizing to ballot initiatives and other efforts that have relied on more traditional forms of activism. "If you build it, that doesn't mean they will come," he says. "That just doesn't exist in online organizing. You must have an organizer behind every piece of technology your organization is putting out there." Sital Sanjanwala, 26 Principal, Chism Strategies It's rare that a state ballot measure draws national attention. But an initiative in Mississippi in 2011 galvanized all sides of the abortion debate. Observers expected the "personhood" amendment, which would have effectively closed the state's lone abortion clinic by declaring that life begins at conception, to pass. The amendment, known as Proposition 26, had the backing of both gubernatorial candidates that year and its passage was thought to be a slam dunk given the state's political climate. But that was before opponents started making the case about the law's unintended consequences. Sital Sanjanwala, working out of the Jackson offices of Chism Strategies, was an integral part of the campaign team that warned voters of potential consequences like investigations into miscarriages. She was only 23 at the time, but she became a link between national and statebased advocates. The campaign managed victory in just 56 days total. Sanjanwala left her home state after the surprise win and spent the 2012-13 cycles based in the firm's D.C. oiii There she worked closely with organizations like Planned Parenthood and Trust for Public Land on both grassroots and electoral campaigns. She returned to Mississippi in 2014, where she's now established as a national phones strategist. "Phones aren't really any different than they've been, but the data has changed," she h says. "We have such an ability to target now, and using the data we have at our disposal is really the most important part of making phones work." Robert Sechrist, 31 President, Acquire Digital, LLC Robert Sechrist thrives on change. He recently moved from D.C. to Nashville, Tenn. He partnered with NationBuilder during his three years at the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC). And since launching his own firm he's taken on non-campaign clients including John Ratzenberger, whom he helped with the crowdfunding campaign to resurrect his documentary show "American Made." Sechrist even wanted to change the Internet. The digital strategist has been instrumental in the launch of .GOP, the first top-level domain to be used by a political entity. Sechrist helped develop both donate.gop and register.gop. Sechrist says he'll have reached a career pinnacle when voters begin landing on websites with the .GOP domain name this summer. "Politics is really all about communicating with folks and creating a community through that," he says. "There are a lot of cool tools there. We're getting much better at the organizing part and the voter contact part." All this change, though, can make him a little nostalgic - if only for a minute or two. "When I came on as a research analyst at the RSLC in 2007, it was all about blogs," he says. "But we quickly realized we could be doing a lot more online." Geoff Sharpe, 24 Digital Manager, Ontario Premier's Office Geoff Sharpe grew up on Canada's West Coast where he began organizing for provincial candidates in 2009. It took him only two years to make it to the federal level, where he started working as a field organizer and youth outreach coordinator while an undergrad at the University of Victoria. He moved east to Toronto in May 2012 to work for Navigator, a consulting firm, and later that year helped Kathleen Wynne with her run for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Ontario. It was a career-changing decision. When Wynne won in 2013 and became the 25th premier of Ontario, the first woman to hold the province's top job and the first openly gay person to serve in that role in Canada's history, Sharpe became her office's digital director. Now, as she readies for provincial elections on June 12, he's transitioned to overseeing digital strategy for her campaign. But Sharpe's work for Wynne wasn't over. He teamed up with her again in January after she won the Liberal Party's leadership race to became the 25th premier of Ontario-the first woman to hold the province's top job and the first openly gay person to serve in that role in Canada's history. Sharpe is now Wynne's digital director, overseeing her office's online presence as she readies for provincial elections on June 12. "I think we've only scratched the surface," Sharpe says. "The next step will be to work on the scalability of predictive analytics." JR Starrett, 31 Campaign Manager There's no easy way to unwind a campaign. That's something JR Starrett learned early in his career when he was wrapping up Mike Beebe's first successful gubernatorial run in Arkansas. His team after Election Day was using a single office shredder on thousands of left-behind documents. "I finally got fed up with it and found a barrel in the back parking lot and just starting burning all of the sheets," he recalls. "And the North Little Rock fire department was called-I heard the sirens and just kept trying to shove as much as possible in there-and I had a very firm talking to about open burning." Eight years and nine states later, Starrett still shudders at the thought of another campaign office clean up. "There's no way to plan for that process," he says. "I try to budget a couple days for staff and then I just tack on an extra one or two days afterward because there's always something." Still, he's kept working campaigns. Starrett has been on races ranging from the presidential campaigns of Tom Vilsack and Hillary Clinton to the election of Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon to former Ohio Rep. Charlie Wilson's bid for his old seat in 2012. Now, he's managing the San Jose mayoral bid of Dave Córtese. It's his first mayor's race, but probably not his last on the West Coast. During a road career that's taken the life of three Jeep Grand Cherokees, Starrett, a native Texan, had always maintained a refuge in Austin. But eight months ago, he moved to San Francisco, where his fiancé is a schoolteacher. "I'm trying to plant some roots," he says. Before getting on Cortese's campaign, he was also thinking about joining one of the city's public affairs firms. "I'm a little tom," he says. "I love managing and I love working with candidates and the day-in, day-out of building a strong campaign that's something I've really enjoyed doing." But then he thinks about the day after a campaign's over. "I've enjoyed my time being boots on the ground," says Starrett. Ashlee Rich Stephenson, 31 Partner, New Strategies Group Ashlee Rich Stephenson got her start in the Strategy Department at the Republican National Committee before heading out to work on the campaign trail and then in the consulting world, although she wasn't entirely green walking in the door. Growing up in a household where politics was part of dinner conversation, Stephenson's civic participation became a question of how or when, not if. Her first political experiences were an internship on the Hill, followed by volunteering in 2004 on President George W. Bush's reelect where as a student, she helped with an event for Vice President Cheney at Allegheny College in northwest Pennslyvania. Stephenson's unique career modelshe's part pollster and focus group moderator, and part campaign advisor -has given her a different perspective on the firm-client relationship. New Strategies Group has a completely different model than most: the principals do pure general consulting. "The direction of our firm allows us to custom-build campaigns for our clients," she says. "Fifteen years ago the pure general consultant was more common, but [after a shift toward multi-faceted consultants] we're now seeing the pendulum swing back in our favor. The real benefit from the client's perspective is that you don't have a consultant who's beholden to one group or the other." Stephenson loved the research side of the business when she was at The Tarrance Group, and prior to working in house at a survey research firm, she served as the polling director on Rudy Giuliani's 2008 presidential campaign. But her current general consulting focus allows her to spend much more time on the ground. NSG's client roster includes Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin and U.S. Senate hopeful Joni Ernst. Malt Taverna, 32 Client Services and Business Development Project Manager, TargetSmart Communications ^ Matt Taverna has the kind of resume that's hard to make a onepager. He's spent more than a decade in campaigns and advocacy stretching back to the 2002 gubernatorial race in Massachusetts that saw Mitt Romney defeat Democrat Shannon O'Brien. Taverna worked the floor during a contentious state Democratic i convention that year that featured a * host of Democratic hopefuls, including former Labor Secretary Robert ; Reich and current Massachusetts AG : candidate Warren Tolman. "The convention was just a crazy crapshoot of making deals and building ; relationships, which was actually a great education in how politics works," i Taverna recalls. After moving to Washington, ; Taverna got a taste for the advocacy world during stints with the National Association of Attorneys General and the Brookings Institution. Even in D.C., though, he managed to get involved in campaigns. During the 2008 cycle, he joined a startup called Spotlight Analysis, contracted by SEIU and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. He later joined the Grossman Marketing Group where he worked under Steve Grossman, the former DNC chairman. "I've been a client, a vendor and a data guy so TargetSmart is really a culmination of everything I've done," he says. Taverna serves as the eyes and ears of the firm in Washington, D.C., managing relationships with much of the company's extensive client list, which includes Organizing for Action, Ready for Hillary and Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Now, Taverna often puts his experience to use redirecting the ambitions of those enamored with the latest gadgets available to campaigns to more practical uses of data. His philosophy: "I don't believe campaigns should be adjusting their entire process because there's new stuff out there," he says. "Down ballot and local races need to understand the people putting data and technology into action are still more important than the data and technology itself." (c) 2014 Votenet Solutions Inc. |