Jeff Birnbaum, a principal at BGR, heads its public relations practice. He leads a team in Washington that gives strategic advice to coalitions, companies and governments about issue campaigns, earned and paid media, data-driven audience identification, and crisis communications. An award-winning journalist, Jeff has worked for several premier news outlets in the United States.
Jeff, who joined BGR in 2010, has helped run issue campaigns, design digital communications, manage coalitions, and protect and improve clients’ reputations. On behalf of a wide range of clients, he has worked with international, national and regional media.
His experience prior to joining BGR includes serving as a White House, congressional and tax reporter for the Wall Street Journal, a senior political correspondent for Time Magazine, Washington bureau chief for Fortune Magazine and a columnist for the Washington Post. He is also the author of five books about Washington including the award-winning “Showdown at Gucci Gulch,” which he wrote with Alan S. Murray, and “Fifty Years of Business Roundtable: The Voice of America’s Leading CEOs in Washington,” for which he led a writing team. In 1994, he won the Aldo Beckman Memorial Award for his coverage of the White House.
“Showdown at Gucci Gulch” won the American Political Science Association’s Carey McWilliams Award in 1988. In 1992, Jeff’s second book, “The Lobbyists,” was a Washington Post bestseller. “Madhouse,” Jeff’s third book, about President Clinton’s White House, was published in 1996. His fourth book, “The Money Men,” examines campaign fundraising and was published in 2000. For his fifth book, Jeff was hired by Business Roundtable in 2022 to write the prestigious organization’s definitive history.
Jeff was chairman of the Bryce Harlow Foundation, Washington’s leading organization of government affairs professionals, and was a longtime member of the board of the National Press Foundation.
A native of Scranton, Pa., Jeff is married with three children. He graduated with honors as an English major from the University of Pennsylvania where he was a member of the class of 1978.
Areas of Focus
- Issue Campaigns
- Audience Identification and Activation
- Earned and Paid Media
- Crisis Communications
- Public Relations
- Coalition Management
Education
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University of Pennsylvania
B.A., English