The Deciders

Avoq co-founder Steve Elmendorf, one of Washington’s top Democratic lobbyists and a former aide to Dick Gephardt, on what a Democratic House means for oversight, dealmaking with Trump, and Hakeem Jeffries’ leadership.

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Bill Hanvey has led the Auto Care Association since 2015, speaking for an aftermarket industry of 5 million workers. He argues that automakers are using wireless vehicle data to shut independent repair shops out of the information they need to fix cars, sending drivers back to dealers at higher cost, and that only a national right to repair law can fix it.

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Nate Cook, Chief Strategy Officer of the American Property Casualty Insurance Association, is a West Point graduate who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and later as the Army’s liaison to the U.S. Senate. He makes the case that the tools of combat leadership might be exactly what advocacy in Washington needs.

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Scott Mulhauser, partner and global public affairs lead at Bully Pulpit International, has worked everywhere from Senate Finance to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. Preparing clients for a possible Democratic wave, he argues a legal defense alone won't protect companies, and that winning now takes an outside game built on reputation and culture.

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S-3 Group co-founder John Scofield spent nearly a decade shaping strategy and messaging for the House Appropriations Committee. He explains why decoding complexity is still one of the best things he brings to clients, and why his formula for 15 years of growth is surprisingly simple.
 

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Anne Bradbury is president and CEO of the American Exploration and Production Council, the trade group for the independent producers responsible for about 80% of the oil and 90% of the natural gas produced in the United States. A former floor director for the Speaker of the House, she argues America isn’t resource constrained but infrastructure constrained, and that policy which expires with each administration isn’t tenable for companies investing on a 20-year horizon.
 

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Will Dunham, President and CEO of the American Investment Council, spent over a decade on Capitol Hill working on major bipartisan legislation where understanding both sides was critical. He now applies that same skill to a very different challenge: leading the trade association for an industry worth trillions of dollars that remains widely misunderstood in Washington.
 

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Mike Catanzaro is CEO and co-founder of CGCN Group, one of Washington's leading all-Republican lobbying and public affairs firms. He argues the working-class voters who flipped 63 of the 100 poorest congressional districts to Republicans now define the party's base — and that corporate America can't lobby around them. He also makes the case for why CGCN turns away private equity, refuses to go bipartisan, and believes trust is the one asset that survives every political cycle.

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American Investment Council
American Consumer & Investor Institute
Defend Forgotten America Action

Jim VandeHei is co-founder and CEO of Axios, and before that he co-founded Politico — twice building some of the most influential media companies in Washington. In this episode, he argues AI backlash is quietly building into a real political fault line and walks through the simplification framework behind his new book, Simplify: Do 50% More with 50% Less.

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This episode sponsored by:

American Petroleum Institute
American Investment Council
American Chemistry Council
Edison Electric Institute
PhRMA
Consumer Brands Association

Noah Theran runs communications for the Managed Funds Association, representing hedge funds and alternative asset managers in Washington. He says the traditional communications playbook has stopped working—and reveals what's replaced it and how leading organizations are adapting.

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