Ben LaBolt 277

Ben LaBolt is a communications strategist and founding partner of The Incite Agency. At Incite, LaBolt has advised Fortune 500 companies, emerging brands and advocacy groups on how to be more targeted, proactive and agile, defend brands under siege and tackle significant customer and public policy initiatives. In 2015, LaBolt was named to PR Week’s 40 Under 40 list of industry leaders who “get results, never settle and represent the future of communications.”

For the prior decade, LaBolt managed press relations for candidates and elected officials from the city to the national level. He served as National Press Secretary for the 2012 Obama-Biden campaign and Communications Director for Rahm Emanuel's successful campaign for Chicago Mayor.

LaBolt worked on Capitol Hill as Press Secretary for U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), then-Congressman Sherrod Brown's successful campaign for the US Senate (D-OH), as well as for US Senator Barack Obama (2007 -- Senate Press Secretary). He was the Deputy Press Secretary for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.

During his tenure at the White House at the inception of the Obama administration, POLITICO called him “one of the best sources … for intelligence on what the media are thinking and what story lines reporters are likely to pursue,” and he served as a spokesman for the efforts to confirm Justices Sotomayor and Kagan to the Supreme Court.

LaBolt also serves as an adjunct instructor in Crisis Management at NYU’s School of Professional Studies and serves on the Board of Directors for RePublic Schools. He is a graduate of Middlebury College and a native of LaGrange, IL.