President, Frisby & Associates, Public Relations Consultant
Mr. Frisby, an award-winning journalist and media strategist, is a trusted advisor in strategic communications. His counsel spans marketing, crisis communications, media affairs, political strategy, messaging, litigation communications, and minority outreach.
In 2003, Mr. Frisby started his firm, Frisby & Associates, after spending four years at Porter Novelli Washington as a Senior Vice President and Director of the Public Strategies & Outreach Practice. For more than two decades, Mr. Frisby represented the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco and the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust. Today, the firm’s clients include the National Collaborative for Health Equity, the National Association of Real Estate Brokers, STEM Global Action, and Vital Strategies.
Over the years, Frisby & Associates has also designed and implemented media and public relations campaigns and projects for W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Demos, author Heather McGhee, the National Training Institute on Race and Equity, Poverty & Race Research Action Council, Maynard Institute, New America Media, Defy Communications, and Regan Communications.
In the summer of 2001, Mr. Frisby served as the chief media strategist for the Levy family and their attorney, Billy Martin, during the early months of their search for their daughter, Chandra, who had gone missing. He led a team that collected 130 million broadcast and print hits for attorney Willie Gary’s employment discrimination suit against Microsoft. His team also collected 30 million broadcast and print hits for Freddie Mac’s launch of its credit counseling program in September 1999. Mr. Frisby developed the minority outreach plan for the National Cancer Institute’s $7 million campaign to promote healthier eating habits among African American men.
Before his tenure at Porter Novelli, Mr. Frisby had a distinguished 22-year career as a journalist. His experience and achievements as the White House Correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, covering four presidential campaigns, Congress, and the White House, are a testament to his tenacity, savvy, and ability to get results.
Mr. Frisby developed relationships with President Clinton and many top administration officials and advisors, including former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, Labor Secretary Alexis Herman, Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Commerce Secretary William Daley, and then-Clinton senior advisor George Stephanopoulos. In 1998, Mr. Frisby was awarded one of the top journalism honors in the country – he won the Aldo Beckman Memorial Award from the White House Correspondents Association for his outstanding coverage of the presidency.
He covered many policy issues, including regulating the tobacco industry, housing finance, race relations, and U.S. trade policy. He has written profiles on prominent national figures, such as powerbroker Vernon Jordan, White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles, Gen. Colin Powell, author Walter Mosley, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown. Before joining the Wall Street Journal in 1992, he spent ten years with the Boston Globe and worked for newspapers in Cleveland and Dayton, Ohio.