Lobbying World

• Rasky Baerlein Strategic Communications has brought on Alexandra Wich to serve as an associate vice president in its Washington office. She comes from Sen. Mark Kirk’s (R-Ill.) office, where she worked as a legislative assistant. In Kirk’s office, she specialized in issues related to economic policy, trade, taxes and financial services.

• Steve Rabinowitz and Aaron Keyak, who most recently collaborated to help the Obama reelection campaign in 2012, have created Bluelight Strategies, a strategic communications firm. Its clients include nonprofits in addition to progressive and pro-Israel individuals and organizations. Keyak and Rabinowitz created The Hub as a “rapid-response research and media outreach team to promote President Obama’s reelection message around foreign policy issues and to the Jewish community.” Rabinowitz is a member of Jewish Americans Ready for Hillary.

{mosads}• Credit Suisse Securities USA hired Peter Ryan as its vice president of federal regulatory affairs. Prior to that, he worked as a senior policy analyst at the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Financial Regulatory Reform Initiative. He was also a consultant for centrist think-tank Third Way in its Capital Markets Initiative.

• Jena Baker McNeill has been named the senior director of government relations at the U.S. Travel Association. Before that, she served as deputy director for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, where she managed many travel-related issues. 

• Gabe Neville will be joining Covington & Burling as a public policy adviser next month. He currently serves as the chief of staff to Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) and has been with the congressman since 1995. Pitts now heads the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health.

• David Hoppe has joined Squire Patton Boggs as a senior policy adviser. He has more than three decades of Capitol Hill experience, including as chief of staff to former Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Trent Lott (R-Miss.).

• Robert R.M. Verchick has been named president of the Center for Progressive Reform, succeeding Rena Steinzor. He holds many positions within the academic and environmental law world and once served senior roles within the Environmental Protection Agency in the Obama administration.

• iHeartMedia Inc., a global media and entertainment company, has hired Sara Morris to work in its Washington office as the senior director of government affairs. She most recently served as the director of the legislative affairs division at the Federal Communications Commission. Before that, she worked as deputy director and telecommunications policy analyst of the Commerce Department’s Office of Congressional Affairs.