Chris Billeter is an executive vice president and head of digital strategy and insights. A seasoned digital communications and public affairs practitioner, he has spent more than 15 years in Washington, D.C., helping organizations navigate the intersection of politics, policy, communications, and technology.
Throughout his career, Chris has worked at agencies large and small, within membership organizations, and on political campaigns. His clients have included major corporations, trade associations representing some of the country’s most consequential industries, congressional candidates, and nonprofit organizations advocating for whales and penguins.
Before joining FTP, Chris was a Senior Vice President in Burson’s Corporate and Public Affairs and Digital practices. He has also led digital teams at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, DCI Group, Seven Letter, and the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Chris graduated from American University with a double major in Political Science and Communications, Legal Institutions, Economics, and Government (CLEG). He lives in Arlington with his girlfriend and their dog, Hazel.
Doug Usher is a partner and leads FTP’s insights and analytics practice. He has spent the last two decades building insights that have helped change the strategic trajectory of major corporations, industry associations, and political campaigns. Combining deep expertise in opinion research, data analysis, and analytics with years of experience navigating the intersection between business goals and the political, policy, and regulatory spheres, Doug helps clients build winning strategies and campaigns across a broad range of industries, with a particular focus on the healthcare, technology, and energy sectors.
In addition to his work at FTP, Doug helped launch the M.S. program in Political Analytics at Columbia University, where he consults, lectures, and helps develop the next generation of analytics professionals. Doug has appeared on MSNBC, CNBC, Fox News, CNN, National Public Radio, and CBC TV in Canada to analyze trends in public opinion and politics. His writing has been published in The Wall Street Journal, National Journal, The Hill, and Campaigns & Elections.
Rick Murphy is a partner in FTP’s federal government relations practice and leads the firm’s Republican advocacy. He works at the center of Senate Republican politics, with deep relationships in Republican leadership and across the conferences, committees, and federal agencies where policy is decided. A former Senate chief of staff, he guides Fortune 500 companies, investors, and trade associations across energy and utilities, technology and telecom, transportation and aviation, aerospace and defense, financial services, and consumer goods. Clients rely on Rick for direct access to the Republican leaders and members who decide outcomes in the U.S. Senate.
As chief of staff to Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Rick ran a 40-person operation and directed the senator’s legislative and political agendas in daily coordination with Republican leadership. He is a prolific fundraiser for Republican candidates and the statewide campaigns that decide the majority. In a chamber that still runs on personal relationships, Rick’s run a generation deep.
Rick began his career on Judd Gregg’s (R-NH) 1992 Senate campaign, serving as chief field operative and building a statewide operation county by county before following Gregg to Washington for his first stint in the U.S. Senate. Before returning to the Senate with Senator Ayotte, he spent 15 years running his own federal lobbying firm, R.B. Murphy & Associates, where he represented Fortune 50 companies including Google and Altria, major trade associations, and the nation’s leading scientific organizations. A native of Middlebury, Connecticut, Rick holds a bachelor’s degree from New England College in New Hampshire.
Libby is a partner and head of FTP’s government relations practice. She advises Fortune 500 corporations, investors, and major trade associations on their most consequential fights in Washington, from high-stakes legislation and regulatory threats to congressional investigations, reputational crises, and the political risk that can reshape an industry overnight. She holds longstanding, trusted relationships across House Democratic leadership, the Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce Committees, and the committees and members who drive critical outcomes across the American economy. A former House chief of staff who came up with winning campaigns in Alabama and red-leaning districts across the country, she has built her career on a conviction that real wins are achieved through bipartisan strategy designed around a durable coalition of support.
One of Washington’s leading healthcare and life sciences advocates, Libby was a key strategist on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry throughout the Affordable Care Act negotiations. In the years since, she has worked on every major piece of healthcare legislation and the defining fights over drug pricing, PBMs, the 340B program, physician reimbursement, and FDA reform. She fights to get new therapies into the hands of the patients who need them, to protect the reimbursement frameworks that put new cures within reach, and to keep American biotechnology and pharmaceutical innovation ahead of global competition. Her work extends across medical devices and diagnostics, most recently working to pass the 2026 law extending Medicare coverage to multi-cancer early detection, bringing a new generation of cancer screening to millions of Americans and changing the odds in the fight against cancer.
Across healthcare and the broader economy, Libby is sought out for the highest-stakes corporate battles, steering companies and industries through congressional investigations, reputational crises, and the political risk around mergers and acquisitions. Libby advises clients on the policy and politics that will define their industries, from food and agriculture to retail and trade, technology, AI, and the live events economy.
On Capitol Hill, Libby served as chief of staff to Representative Allen Boyd (D-FL) for nearly a decade, helping lead the Blue Dog Coalition to the height of its influence, growing its political operation tenfold, and recruiting and mentoring the moderate candidates who delivered the Democratic House majority in 2006. She helped write the Blue Dogs’ pay-as-you-go budget rules, enacted into federal law and still in force today, that require Congress to pay for what it spends, a cornerstone of the coalition’s fiscal legacy. Today she sits at the heart of the centrist coalition that decides close votes, the moderate members who hold the balance in a narrowly divided House. That work extends through Center Forward, the bipartisan organization she co-founded in 2010, now one of Washington’s leading conveners of cross-party dialogue. Libby’s political career began in Alabama, where she rose through state campaigns and Democratic politics before joining a national fundraising practice in Washington. She went on to serve as Representative Allen Boyd’s chief of staff for nearly a decade before joining Jeff Forbes in 2009 at the firm that would become Forbes Tate Partners (now FTP). A native of Birmingham, she holds a B.A.in English from Birmingham-Southern College, where she graduated with Distinction in Leadership Studies.
Jeff Forbes is the founding partner and chairman of FTP. A 20-year veteran of political campaigns at every level, Jeff began his involvement in politics more than 25 years ago on then-Senator Al Gore’s 1988 Presidential bid. Since that time, he has worked with and coordinated numerous campaigns, ranging from municipal candidates to the U.S. Congress, as well as the White House.
Prior to founding Forbes Tate Partners (FTP), Jeff was a founding partner at Forbes Tate’s predecessor, Cauthen Forbes & Williams. He served as the Democratic staff director for the US Senate Committee on Finance in 2003. Before assuming this role at the Committee, he served as chief of staff to former Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) from 1999-2002. Beyond his knowledge of the intricacies of tax and trade, Jeff is a veteran strategist for the Democratic National Committee. From 1993-1995 he served as Midwest political director. Jeff later served the national committee as chief of strategy in 1999.
A stalwart of the Clinton-Gore administration, Jeff was the New Hampshire field director for then-Governor Clinton’s 1992 Presidential campaign. In President Clinton’s 1996 re-election bid, he was deputy political director and director of delegate selection. Following the campaign, Jeff went on to serve as a special assistant to the President and staff director for legislative affairs in 1997. From 1998-99, he served as the deputy assistant to President Clinton and was the deputy director of scheduling at the White House. He also served as senior advisor to the Obama for President Campaign in New Hampshire in the 2008 presidential election. Jeff was a member of the Democratic National Committee’s special Democratic Change Commission to improve the presidential delegate selection process and has been a member of the DNC since 2009.
Jeff was born in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in Northfield, Minnesota. He earned a B.A. in Political Science with an Economics minor from Denison University in Granville, Ohio, in 1987. Jeff and his wife live in Chevy Chase, Maryland with their three sons.
Cindy is a partner in FTP’s federal government relations practice and leads the firm’s Democratic advocacy. She works at the center of Democratic policymaking, with relationships across House and Senate leadership and the Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Senate Finance Committees, where the party’s economic agenda takes shape. She guides Fortune 500 companies, industry innovators, investors, and trade associations across tax, trade, technology, energy, education, healthcare, and life sciences, providing direct access to the centrist Democrats who often decide outcomes in Congress.
As chief of staff to Representative Ron Kind (D-WI), Cindy led legislative efforts on the Ways and Means Committee and helped relaunch the New Democrat Coalition, building its first PAC and recruiting its first executive director. She maintains deep relationships across the New Democrat Coalition—now the largest bloc in the House and a pro‑growth center of gravity in Democratic politics—and is a leading fundraiser for the party, raising for committee leaders, front‑line members, and Midwestern candidates at the center of the fight for the majority.
Previously, Cindy served as vice president of legislative strategies at the Campaign to Fix the Debt and held senior roles at several government‑relations firms. She began her career on Capitol Hill in the office of Representative Bart Stupak (D-MI).
Michelle Baker is a partner and leads FTP’s public affairs practice. She counsels senior corporate, association, philanthropic and nonprofit stakeholders on high-stakes policy, reputation and advocacy challenges. She brings a wide-angle view of today’s complex policy and communications environment and designs integrated initiatives that move opinion, influence decision makers and deliver results.
Michelle leads major campaigns across healthcare, education, food and agriculture, defense, technology and other highly regulated sectors, with healthcare as a core focus throughout her career. Her experience spans health systems, biopharmaceutical companies, government agencies, payers, professional medical associations and nonprofits, as well as coalitions advancing work on heart disease, cancer, pharmaceutical safety, vaccinations, addiction and emerging public health threats.
She has held senior roles across leading firms, including serving as chief of staff at Ketchum, where she launched key new services for healthcare and corporate communications. Her public affairs leadership also includes running the health practice at Weber Shandwick/Powell Tate and serving in senior roles at Signal Group and Chandler Chicco Agency/Syneos Communications.
An advocate for family caregiving and memory care, Michelle serves as chair of the Board of Trustees of Arts for the Aging (AFTA), the board of the Wendt Center, and previously served for ten years on the board of the Caregivers Action Network (CAN).
