Bully Pulpit International

It was founded by Andrew Bleeker, a former Obama campaign staffer. The company led the digital strategy for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, worked on Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign and Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign and has worked for major companies such as Walmart and McDonald’s. ²

Background

Andrew Bleeker, lead digital marketing strategist on Barack Obama’s successful 2008 presidential campaign, founded Bully Pulpit International in 2009. The firm is a left-of-center public relations and marketing firm based in Washington with offices in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and across Europe. ¹

Bully Pulpit International took over another public relations firm started by alumni of the Obama administration. Ben LaBolt, who worked on President Obama’s communications team, and former Obama White House press secretary Robert Gibbs had founded Incite Agency in 2013; in 2016, Bully Pulpit bought Incite. LaBolt became a partner with Bully Pulpit; Gibbs had already left the company. ³

In December 2023, Bully Pulpit Interactive acquired the European consulting firm BOLDT and renamed itself Bully Pulpit International. BOLDT retained its separate branding while the combined firm would have 250 employees and offer public affairs, campaigning, and strategic communications to American and European clients. ⁴

Clients

Corporate Clients

Bully Pulpit has worked for major corporations, reportedly including Walmart, McDonald’s, PepsiCo, EY, Goldman Sachs, Facebook, Airbnb and Sonos. ⁵

Advocacy Clients

Bully Pulpit works for a number of left-of-center nonprofit clients, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), EMILY’s List, the Human Rights Campaign, Priorities USA, NextGen America and Everytown for Gun Safety. It has also worked for the center-left think tank the Brookings Institution. It also has worked for industry groups such as the Society for Human Resource Management and the Nuclear Energy Institute.  ⁶

Political Campaigns

Bully Pulpit Interactive handled the digital strategy for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and its joint fundraising operation with the Democratic National Committee, as well as the Hillary Victory Fund. It earned more than $10 million from the Clinton campaign entities. ⁷

2020 Campaign

The company hired former Obama pollster Danny Franklin, also a former journalist and speechwriter, in 2018 to work in its New York office. Franklin came to the company from Beneson Strategy Group. ⁸ Franklin, who became the firm’s first New York partner, had worked with Bully Pulpit founder Andrew Bleeker on both of President Obama’s successful presidential campaigns, as wells as the Clinton campaign in 2016. ⁹

The company rolled out new features for its digital ad spending tracker going into the 2020 election season. The tracker relied on digital ad spending data for Google and Facebook. The data raised concerns among Democrats about spending. Bleeker said digital “is the single biggest expense right now on the Democratic campaigns for the first time ever,” but was not yet at the same level as President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign. Bleeker also said the Trump campaign has “unprecedented coordination between the paid media campaign and the earned media campaign.” ¹⁰

In the 2020 presidential campaign, the company helped Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden connect with social media influencers and established partnerships with them to push his message outside of the confines of his campaign. ¹

2024 Campaign

In the 2024 presidential campaign, Bully Pulpit International worked for the Biden-Harris reelection campaign and later for then-Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign after then-President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race. As of mid-October 2024, the company had received $101 million in gross receipts combined from the Biden-Harris and Harris-Walz campaigns. The company also worked for several “dark money” groups aligned with the Harris campaign such as Future Forward USA and Climate Power. The company focused its advertising on the social media platform Snapchat and targeting demographics such as “Beauty Mavens,” “Clubbery & Party People,” “Reality TV Fans,” and “Battle Combat & FPS Gamers.” ²

Paulette Aniskoff, who was Barack Obama’s 2008 field director in Pennsylvania, took leave from the company in September 2024 to work as a senior advisor for the Harris-Walz campaign focused on get-out-the-vote efforts and voter-contact efforts in the state. Democrats had grown concerned about the Harris-Walz’s campaign in the state and whether it was connecting with the Black and Latino voters in the state. ¹¹

Criticism

Bully Pulpit International has drawn criticism from some on the left for working for corporate clients who do not align with the Democratic Party on some issues. At the Democratic National Convention in 2024, the company hosted a party for delegates called “The Party Line.” The company drew criticism for being what some called a “revolving door” for those who work in government and then move into lobbying and the corporate world after working for the company. The company also drew criticism for setting up a policy practice to lobby on behalf of clients in the debate over whether or renew the 2017 Trump administration-backed tax cuts claiming they disproportionately benefit the wealthy.  ¹²

Leadership

As of 2026, Andrew Bleeker was the CEO and founder of Bully Pulpit International. He was the lead digital marketing strategist for both of Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns. After the Obama campaigns, he worked for Hill + Knowlton Strategies as their global digital practice leader. ¹³

As of 2026, Kim Axelrod was a partner and the COO of Bully Pulpit International. She joined the company in 2021 and previously worked for Burson’s (then BCW Global) Washington, D.C. office. ¹⁴

As of 2026, Ben Coffey Clark was founding partner of Bully Pulpit International. He is a former political reporter who switched to campaign work and has been involved with every Democratic presidential campaign cycle since his work in 2004 with the Howard Dean presidential campaign. ¹⁵

As of 2026, Jeremy Galbraith was CEO for Europe of Bully Pulpit International. He was CEO of Burson-Marsteller EMEA for a decade until 2017 leading 700+ employees in 32 offices. Previously he was CEO of Burson-Marsteller Brussels. ¹⁶

As of 2026, Ben LaBolt was president of Bully Pulpit International. He had served as the White House Communications Director under President Joe Biden, serving from 2023 until the end of his term. He also served in other roles in both the Biden and Obama administrations. ¹⁷