Jamal Simmons

Jamal Simmons is one of the most experienced communications professionals of his generation. He is currently a principal at The Raben Group, a Washington, DC consulting firm, where he provides communications and strategic counsel to corporate and non-profit clients. During the 2010 congressional election he was the Democratic political analyst for CBS News and before that a fixture on CNN during the 2008 election.

Simmons got his professional start in presidential politics traveling with candidate Bill Clinton during his successful 1992 campaign and was a political appointee during the first Clinton Administration with U.S. Trade Representative and Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor. In 2000, he was a communications aide for Vice President Al Gore during his presidential campaign and served as a Gore spokesman in West Palm Beach, Florida during the recount. He has also served as traveling press secretary to presidential candidates Bob Graham and Wesley Clark, campaign communications director for U.S. Senator Max Cleland, and chief of staff to U.S. Representative Carolyn Cheeks-Kilpatrick. Simmons was an advisor to Nevada Democrats and the Democratic National Committee for the 2008 Obama/Biden campaign.

Simmons planned events for the Clinton White House in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean, and has represented major corporations in China and Latin America. He worked on the 2004 We Are the Future charity concert with Quincy Jones in Rome and Al Gore’s Live Earth concert in Hamburg, Germany in 2007. He was a French American Foundation 2009-10 Young Leader and former term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

A graduate of Morehouse College, where he recently received the Presidential Award of Distinction, Simmons has a master in public policy degree from Harvard University. His views and opinions have been featured in several major publications such as GQ Magazine, the New York Times and Politico.