Lobbying World

By The Hill Staff - 10/09/12 06:27 PM ET

Matthew LaRocco has been named the director of government affairs at Williams Mullen. Prior to joining the firm’s Washington, D.C., office, LaRocco worked as the senior legislative and policy adviser at Arnold & Porter LLP. Before that, he served as the general manager of Fleishman-Hillard Government Relations and senior vice president and leader of the firm’s “financial services and homeland security practice groups.”

Jessica Boulanger has been named the vice president of communications for the Business Roundtable, where she will “oversee digital outreach, media relations, advertising and member communications for the association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies.” She has previously worked as the vice president at New Media Strategies and held positions in the House Republican leadership and with the National Republican Congressional Committee and Republican National Committee. Boulanger also served on the media staff for Lerer & Montgomery in regard to the AOL-Time Warner merger.

Gene Kimmelman has been tapped to direct the Internet Freedom and Human Rights Project at the New America Foundation. The project is being undertaken in conjunction with New America's Open Technology Institute (OTI), as well as public interest groups such as the Center for Democracy and Technology, Free Press and Public Knowledge. He will also serve as director of the foundation’s U.S. office for Global Partners and Associates. Before coming to New America, Kimmelman served as chief counsel for competition policy in the Justice Department's Antitrust Division.

Rick Kaplan will be joining the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) as the executive vice president of strategic planning, where he will concentrate on work “related to spectrum and innovation policy.” Kaplan served at the Federal Communications Commission as chief counsel to Chairman Julius Genachowski. After that, he became the chief of staff to Commissioner Mignon Clyburn. He advocated for “spectral efficiency and spectrum sharing” at the FCC and “helped lead the commission's review of major transactions including Comcast-NBCU, AT&T-T-Mobile, AT&T-Qualcomm and Verizon-SpectrumCo,” according to NAB.