Lobbying world

• Cindy Brown has joined Forbes Tate Partners as a partner. She has previously worked at West Front Strategies, served as the vice president for legislative strategies at the Campaign to Fix the Debt, was a principal at Mehlman Castagnetti Rosen & Thomas, then known as Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti, and worked as the chief of staff to Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.).

• Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld hired Brendan Dunn away from the office of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Dunn served as McConnell’s chief adviser and also worked with GOP leadership on tax, trade and financial services issues. Before that, Dunn worked as special counsel and the general counsel of the Senate Finance Committee. He begins his new role on May 24. 

• Capitol Counsel has founded a new trade practice. Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) will serve as chairman of the practice, and Josh Kardon, former chief of staff to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), will serve as co-chairman. Others from the firm — Bruce Hirsh, a former senior official in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and Martin Gold — will also be involved.

{mosads}• Rebecca Spicer, who runs communications for the National Beer Wholesalers Association, will be joining Airlines for America (A4A) as its senior vice president of communications. She starts at A4A next month. Her previous experience includes serving as associate director of communications for the George W. Bush administration and working for more than a decade in television news.

• Banking giant HSBC has named former Treasury Department official Matt Kellogg its senior vice president for public affairs in its Washington office. Kellogg will be part of the company’s global public policy and government relations team, “responsible for coordinating prudential bank regulatory activity in the United States.” He comes from the Treasury Department, where he served as deputy assistant secretary of banking and finance within the Office of Legislative Affairs. Before that, Kellogg worked as a senior policy adviser and counsel to House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and as general counsel at the Independent Petroleum Association of America.