Lobbying World: Alpine Group names new CEO

Keenan Austin Reed will be the next CEO of the Alpine Group. Before joining Alpine in 2021, she was chief of staff to then-Rep. Donald McEachin (D-Va.) and previously served as the Clinton campaign’s statewide political director in Florida during the 2016 election. She is also the founder of the Black Women’s Congressional Alliance, a membership organization of more than 300 Black women Capitol Hill staffers.

Effective. Jan. 1, Austin Reed will succeed Les Spivey, a longtime Senate Appropriations Committee staffer who then led the firm as CEO and managing principal for five years. Spivey will transition to a new role as president.

Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper is joining Squire Patton Boggs as a senior adviser.

Capitol Counsel is adding Adam Carasso as a partner and Jay Heflin as a principal, bolstering the lobbying firm’s tax practice ahead of the much-anticipated tax reform debate. 

Carasso was previously director of federal tax affairs at Corning Inc. and spent nine years on the Senate Finance Committee Democratic staff, with his last role being senior tax and economic adviser to Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).

Heflin was most recently director at the Federal Policy Group, and previously spent more than a decade reporting on federal tax policy in newsrooms including The Hill.

Jessica Lewis is joining Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck as a policy director in the firm’s government relations department. Lewis was most recently assistant secretary of State for political-military affairs and was previously staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the foreign policy and national security adviser to then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

Melissa Boedigheimer is now senior policy adviser of natural gas markets for the American Petroleum Institute. Boedigheimer most recently worked under Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) a senior professional staff member for the House Transportation and Infrastructure’s Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Subcommittee, according to LegiStorm. She also worked as an adviser in the office of the director at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

LSG is adding Jackeline Stewart-Hawkins as a partner. She was previously the U.S. chair of polycultural advisory at Burson and led Edelman’s U.S. multicultural practice, and served as press secretary of the General Services Administration during the Obama administration.

Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios will become a member of the Motion Picture Association on Oct. 1.