Hill moves

• Craig Wheeler is now the communications director for Sen. Deb Fischer. He was previously comms director for Rep. Bob Latta.
• Elizabeth Connolly is now legislative director for Sen. Gary Peters, per Leadership Connect. She was most recently Sen. Jon Tester's legislative assistant.
• Abigail Jackson has left Sen. Josh Hawley's office and is now deputy communications director at the RNC.
• Brian Benko has joined the House China Select Committee team as deputy communications director. He previously worked with Targeted Victory, Tim Scott for America, and Marco Rubio for Senate.

Administration moves

• Timothy Kurth is joining OSTP as legislative affairs director. He most recently served as chief counsel for the House Energy and Commerce Innovation, Data, and Commerce Subcommittee.
• President Trump has named Adam Cassady, a top aide to FCC commissioner Nathan Simington, as acting NTIA administrator. Trump's pick to lead NTIA, Arielle Roth, is awaiting confirmation.
• BEAD program director Evan Feinman is out at NTIA.
• FTC chair Andrew Ferguson has announced he's appointed Taylor Hoogendoorn as deputy director of the Bureau of Competition and Katherine White as deputy director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection. Hoogendoorn joins from Susman Godfrey and White comes from Kelley Drye & Warren.

Industry and lobbying moves

• Nathan Trail has joined ITI as vice president of state government affairs, helping to launch its state advocacy program. He was recently at Supernal, a division of Hyundai Motor Group, and spent a decade at CTA.
• Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt is joining rocket startup Relativity Space as CEO.
• CTIA has announced that Ajit Pai has been named CEO. Pai was appointed by President Trump in his first term to chair the FCC, and most recently was at Searchlight Capital Partners.
• Docusign has a number of new hires: Lee Fisher has joined as vice president, public sector and Troy Phillips has joined as area vice president, federal government sales. Both were most recently with Salesforce. Dwight Chamberlain is now area vice president, state & local government and higher education sales. He was most recently with Cellebrite.
• Shawn Chang is now with Washington Analysis as senior vice president — telecom, media, and technology policies. He was most recently a partner at the law firm Wiley Rein, and prior to his work in the private sector served as senior counsel to the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
• Nathaniel Brown has joined TikTok as global head of corporate communications. He was formerly the spokesperson for Warner Bros. Discovery.
• Sumit Sharma is now NextGen Competition's executive director. He most recently served as the senior researcher of competition policy at Consumer Reports.
• The Financial Technology Association has announced Leo Garcia as director of state government affairs. He joins FTA from the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Nonprofit and think tank moves

• Americans for Responsible Innovation has announced several new hires, including Justin Bullock as vice president of policy, Kirsten D'Souza as coalitions director, and Mitchell Kominsky as vice president of government affairs. Bullock was previously at Convergence Analysis, D'Souza comes from Chamber of Progress, and Kominsky was general partner at Futureland Ventures.
• The Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy & Technology has welcomed Jamie Morgan as a non-resident fellow. Most recently, she led regional affairs for South and Southeast Asia at the Defense Department.
• The Center for Democracy & Technology has announced that former U.S. ambassador Karen Kornbluh joined as a visiting fellow. Kornbluh most recently served as the principal deputy White House chief technology officer and director of the national AI office during the Biden administration.