Recent and notable representative experience:

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Public Affairs & Issues Management

• Advised the Chairman and CEO of the nation’s leading motorsports league on strategies to enhance public private partnerships, including the creation of SPEEDPAC, the first political action committee in the history of motorsports.

• Counseled the largest for-profit higher education company in North America as it faced unprecedented public scrutiny and the threat of regulation that would harm its business.

• Led a campaign across more than 30 U.S. states to combat regulation that would ban or tax plastic grocery bags. Effort led to the passage of landmark environmental legislation in New York City, which was replicated in the City of Chicago and other cities.

• Developed an integrated education campaign to support the hydraulic fracturing operations of a global petroleum company, including a grassroots engagement strategy for the company’s outreach efforts across several U.S. states.

 

Crisis Communications

• Supported the reputation protection effort for a global ratings agency during litigation surrounding the company’s ratings of mortgage-backed securities.

• Designed a reputation management program for the president of a global network university during an aggressive faculty campaign seeking his ouster.

• Advised the athletic department of a large state university system during a high profile investigation into the school’s academic integrity.

• Orchestrated communications and rapid response operations for a global auction house after the lockout of the company’s unionized workforce during protracted collective bargaining.

• Created holistic communications and crisis preparation programs for two global hospitality companies during collective bargaining with their unionized workers across more than 60 hotels in New York City.

• Advised the founding family and senior leadership of the world’s largest diversified conglomerate on sensitive, high-profile reputational issues.

 

Mergers & Acquisitions

• Led communications around the completion of an $8.7 billion take-private acquisition in the specialty retail space; the biggest LBO of 2014. Led the transition of a new CEO and several new corporate officers and advised the new Chief Marketing Officer in the restructure of the company’s marketing communications function.

• Led communications strategy for a rural cable provider when it was acquired in a $9 billion transaction, and advised the company through regulatory approval of the transaction and post-merger integration.

• Led communications for a global telecommunications conglomerate when it acquired a major metropolitan cable system in a $17 billion transaction, and managed communications throughout regulatory approval of the deal.

• Led the communications effort in connection with the rebrand of a global financial analytics conglomerate following the divestiture of its education publishing unit.

 

Prior to founding Vermillion Advisors, Dave held senior leadership roles at Firehouse Strategies, Kekst, Teneo, Edelman, and Burson-Marsteller. He began his career in political consulting and government relations, working alongside Hank Sheinkopf as a key strategist for candidates and causes throughout the world. In 2005, Dave served as campaign spokesman and media strategist in the landslide reelection of NYC Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, the highest-ranking woman in city government and the first woman elected to that office. He has written and produced over 150 campaign commercials that have aired in Bermuda, the Dominican Republic, Italy, Mexico and 20 U.S. states.

 

Dave holds a B.A. in economics from Fairfield University and an M.S. in strategic communications from Columbia University. He is a graduate of Regis High School in Manhattan. Dave has been an adjunct lecturer at New York University, and a special adviser to The Hewitt School and The New York Says Thank You Foundation.