Lobbying World

Akshai Datta left Rep. Ami Bera’s (D-Calif.) office last week for the U.S. India Business Council, where he will serve as a senior manager for life sciences and media/entertainment. For Bera, Datta worked as a senior legislative assistant. 

Amanda Crumley joined Forbes Tate Partners as senior vice president and will assist the firm in expanding its strategic communications, issue advocacy and crisis management offerings for clients. She has had her own firm, Crumley Communications & Public Strategies, for almost a decade. She is a veteran of local, state and presidential elections, in addition to serving as the communications director for then-Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack (D) and working in the Clinton White House.

{mosads}K&L Gates added former Secretary of the Army John McHugh and his longtime adviser, Anne LeMay, to the firm’s public policy and law practice. McHugh (R-N.Y) also served nine terms in Congress, sitting on the House Armed Services Committee, the International Relations Committee and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and chairing the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on the Postal Service. LeMay served as McHugh’s principal civilian adviser at the Department of the Army and spent 16 years in senior roles on Capitol Hill. 

Andrew Ehrlich has been named as a partner at Total Spectrum/Steve Gordon and Associates. Prior to that, he worked for 14 years at Faegre Baker Daniels, serving as a principal at the firm’s lobbying arm, Faegre BD Consulting. 

ML Strategies, the consulting affiliate of law firm Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, has named former Massachusetts Sen. William “Mo” Cowan (D) as its president and CEO. He previously served as ML Strategies’ senior vice president and chief operating officer. Stephen Tocco, who has served as president and CEO since 1997, will now serve as chairman. 

Dawn Stump, who held senior roles in the House and Senate, has formed her own public affairs firm called Stump Strategic. It will focus on financial services issues, as Stump helped work on the derivatives provisions of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law while working at the Senate Agricultural Committee. She most recently served as the senior vice president and head of government affairs for the Futures Industry Association.