FRITTS’ NEW FIRM IS OFF THE GROUND: Kimberley Fritts, the Podesta Group’s longtime chief executive, has launched a new firm a week after quitting the Podesta Group, POLITICO’s Theodoric Meyer reports. “Many of the Podesta Group’s top lobbyists are following Fritts to the new firm, Cogent Strategies, along with at least 15 clients, according to a person familiar with the firm’s plans. … The new firm is expected to retain the Podesta Group’s wide range of lobbying, with a focus on technology, financial services and energy work, according to the person familiar with the firm’s plans. The firm will do foreign lobbying, public relations and digital work, too.”
— “About 40 percent of the roughly 60 staffers who worked at the Podesta Group last month are heading to Cogent, including 18 of the Podesta Group’s 27 principals and all four of its senior vice presidents.” According to the firm’s website, the former Podesta Group principals joining the new firm include David Adams, John Anderson, Erin Billings, Peggy Binzel, Jim Dyer, Randall Gerard, Josh Holly, Beth Inadomi, Claudia James, Andrew Kauders, Lauren Maddox, Kevin McLaughlin, Elizabeth Morra, Mike Quaranta, Oscar Ramirez, Javier Sancho, Missi Tessier and Dana Thompson. Hastie Afkhami, Katie Beck, Will Bohlen and Emily Flynn Pappas, who were senior vice president at the Podesta Group, and Shellie Purvis, who was a vice president, round out the team. Full story.
FORMER PODESTA PRINCIPAL JOINS VANTAGEKNIGHT: Cristina Antelo, a former Podesta Group principal, has joined VantageKnight, the boutique lobbying shop started last year by Manny Ortiz, a former Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck lobbyist. She’ll be the firm’s chief executive. Lucia Alonzo, a former Podesta Group director, is coming with her, bringing VantageKnight’s head count to four, along with Olga DeMetri, a former LEVICK vice president. Antelo will bring some of her Podesta Group clients with her, including the Brooks Development Authority and Perceptics.
— Antelo had considered starting her own firm, she said in an interview, but ultimately decided to partner with Ortiz. Both of them are Democrats. “By teaming up, we’re really going to be able to take advantage of what’s coming in 2018,” Antelo said, adding that the firm is open to adding a Republican partner if it can find the right fit. Other Podesta Group principals who haven’t joined Fritts' new firm include Josh Lahey and Paul Brathwaite, both of whom are starting their own firms, Lahey with the former Senate staffer Colin Hayes.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2017/11/17/fritts-launches-new-firm-027383