Personnel Notes

Sherrese Smith, chief counsel and legal adviser to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Julius Genachowski, will leave the commission in the coming weeks.

Smith is the last remaining member of the chairman's original team of legal advisers and plays a key role in the chairman's office. She is responsible for managing the commission's overall policy agenda and coordinating between its various bureaus and offices, according to the FCC website.

Smith said she hasn't decided what her next steps will be, but predicted that she will likely "stay in this space in some capacity" and is ready for her next challenge.

"I've been there for four years and I've accomplished everything I wanted to accomplish," Smith told The Hill. "I'm leaving things in great hands."

In a statement, Genachowski said it would be "difficult" to bid goodbye to Smith and lauded her work at the FCC. The FCC chairman called Smith "one of the most respected and well-liked people at the commission."

Former Rep. Mary Bono Mack is headed to K Street, where the longtime GOP California lawmaker will consult on issues involving technology, Internet privacy and energy for FaegreBD Consulting, the lobby shop announced Tuesday.

Bono Mack has signed on as a senior vice president at the firm’s Washington office, where she’ll also work on intellectual property rights and entertainment issues, the company said. She is prohibited by federal rules from lobbying for one year. 

Robert Holleyman, the longtime president and CEO of software lobbying organization BSA, announced on Friday that he will step down at the end of April.

The organization's executive committee has launched a search for his successor. 

Holleyman is leaving to launch a new company, Cloud4Growth, that will focus on helping governments and organizations use cloud technology. He will continue to serve as a senior adviser to BSA Chairman Pascal Di Fronzo, the group said.

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), the lobbying group for the video game industry, announced Wednesday that it has hired Ali Amirhooshmand and Danielle Rodman, longtime veterans of Capitol Hill.

The move comes amid heightened scrutiny of the industry since last year’s mass shooting in Newtown, Conn. Lawmakers have questioned whether violent video games contribute to real world violence and suggested that increased regulation of the industry might be needed.

Amirhooshmand and Rodman will serve as directors of federal government affairs for the lobbying organization.

Yael Weinman is leaving the Federal Trade Commission to join the Information Technology Industry Council next month, the tech lobbying firm announced on Monday.

Weinman will serve as vice president for global privacy policy and general counsel at ITI, where she will leverage her past experience working on privacy and data protection issues at the FTC. Weinman currently serves as an attorney adviser to FTC Commissioner Julie Brill, where she specializes in domestic and international privacy and data security issues. 

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) is assuming control of the Senate subcommittee in charge of the budgets of the financial agencies.

The former head of an Energy Department research and development program is heading to Google to lead its energy strategy.

Arun Majumdar will join Google after leaving his most recent post as director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) in June.

“One of the world’s biggest challenges is bringing reliable, sustainable and affordable energy to everyone. We need a new energy blueprint for the future — the latest advances in technology have the potential to bring us closer to that goal than ever before,” Matthew Stepka, vice president of Google.org, said Monday of Majumdar’s hiring on the Internet giant’s “green blog.”

Hillary Clinton's former campaign manager Mark Penn is joining Microsoft as a corporate vice president.

As the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) moves to implement its new authority to sell valuable radio spectrum via incentive auctions, it is seeking advice from a group of economists with expertise in auction design and competition policy.

The commission has retained a group of prize-winning economists led by Paul Milgrom, the Ely Professor of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University. Milgrom, who is considered one of the foremost thinkers in auction theory and design, helped the FCC create its first spectrum auctions — which have served as a blueprint for similar auctions around the world.
Read more...

President Obama announced his intent to nominate Bill Baer to lead the Justice Department's antitrust division on Friday.