Kansas City, Mo. – August 16, 2011 – Annie Presley has joined the international law firm Bryan Cave LLP as senior policy advisor in the firm’s Kansas City office. She will work with the firmwide Public Policy & Government Affairs Group composed of lawyers and non-lawyer consulting professionals. The team represents clients before the U.S. Congress, the executive branch (including the White House), cabinet departments and independent agencies, state legislatures, governors, attorneys general and county and municipal governments. The group’s diverse clients are corporations, trade associations, governmental entities and nonprofit groups.
Presley joins the firm after 18 years in politics and fundraising as the principal of The McKellar Group Inc., a company she founded in 1993. During this time she advised not-for-profit and political figures in “the art and science of fundraising” – a technique she developed and has used to help clients raise more the $700 million.
Presley also enjoyed unique business experiences worldwide while working as national deputy finance director for George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign and then as vice president of governmental affairs and charitable giving at UBS Paine Webber on Wall Street in New York City. These jobs provided her the opportunity to build meaningful relationships at the White House and in its departments and agencies, with members of Congress, state legislators, governors, ambassadors, county executives and mayors. As a result of these contacts and relationships, she is sought out as a consultant to assist with project development, issue positioning, legislative change, outreach, strategic counsel, creative bonding solutions and tax credit applications.
McKellar political clients included Missourians for Kit Bond, Roberts for Senate, Brownback for Governor, the Republican National Committee, Ashcroft for Senate, the California Republican Party and many others. Nonprofit clients featured the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, the Kansas City Ballet, Harry S. Truman Library Foundation, Camp Fire USA and the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Presley is a member of the American League of Lobbyists; the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce; National Association of Fundraising Professionals; and the American Society for Public Administration. She sits on the MOCSA board in Kansas City (Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault) and the advisory board of Digital Ally Inc., among numerous other organizations. She is an adjunct professor at Park University, where she teaches “Electing the American President,” and is vice president of marketing and communications for the University of Missouri-Kansas City alumni board.
She received her master’s degree from The Cookingham Institute at the Bloch School of Management, the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and her B.A. in political science from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Bryan Cave LLP (www.bryancave.com) has a diversified international legal practice. The firm represents a wide variety of business, financial, institutional and individual clients, including publicly held multinational corporations, large and mid-sized privately held companies, partnerships and emerging companies. Subsidiary Bryan Cave International Consulting provides trade and customs consultancy and strategic counsel. Aided by extensive investments in technology, Bryan Cave’s more than 1,000 lawyers and other professionals in 25 offices across the United States, the United Kingdom, Continental Europe and Asia efficiently serve clients’ needs in the world’s leading business and financial markets.
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For more information, contact:
Meghan Newton, Goodman Media International
(212) 576-2700 ext.245 or mnewton@goodmanmedia.com
