Helping Leaders Navigate Complexity and Advance Their Mission.
Starlight Public Affairs provides senior-level strategic communications, public affairs, and executive counsel to organizations navigating complex challenges, building trust, and advancing their missions.
Let’s Talk · Explore Our Expertise
Leadership experience. Communications expertise. One trusted advisor.
Complex challenges rarely fit neatly within a single discipline. Neither should the counsel you receive.
As a former association CEO, global agency leader, and senior communications executive, Jeff Joseph understands the decisions leaders face—and how communications can help advance organizational strategy.
Starlight brings that perspective to every engagement, with personal attention, practical advice, and the right specialists when you need them.
Our Expertise
Executive Counsel & Organizational Strategy
Senior counsel that connects leadership, organizational priorities, and communications.
Strategic Communications & Reputation
A clear narrative and credible voice that build trust and strengthen reputation.
Public Affairs & Stakeholder Engagement
Thoughtful engagement at the intersection of policy, mission, and stakeholder interests.
Crisis, Issues & Change Management
Calm judgment and practical preparation when the stakes rise.
Representative Clients
Embassy of the United Arab Emirates
Association of American Medical Colleges
Tax Analysts
National Association of Broadcasters
Technology Student Association
Consumer Technology Association
Selected Starlight engagements. These names do not imply that every engagement is current. Display subject to approval; no client logos are used.
Client Perspectives
Jeff Joseph and Starlight Public Affairs have been an invaluable partner to Tax Analysts on everything from refining our mission statement and updating our brand strategy to media training, PR, and strategic communications. Jeff brings a thoughtful, practical approach to every engagement and has a real ability to understand an organization, sharpen its message, and help it communicate with greater clarity and confidence.
Cara Griffith
President and CEO, Tax AnalystsWe love Jeff: He is an incredibly effective communications professional and an enthusiastic champion of the benefits of innovation. Jeff is passionate, strategic, honest, warm, quick, upbeat and has an endless desire to make a difference. He was a huge contributor to the growth of our association, serving as a trusted advisor and an ethical lodestar.
Gary Shapiro
President and CEO, Consumer Technology Association
What’s on your horizon?
Let’s talk about the challenges you face, the opportunities you see, and where experienced counsel could help.
Leadership
Experience that informs.
Judgment you can trust.
Jeff Joseph · Founder and Principal
Jeff Joseph
Clients don’t hire me simply to improve communications. They hire me to help leaders navigate complexity, build trust, engage stakeholders with authenticity, and advance their mission.
As Founder and Principal of Starlight Public Affairs, I serve as a trusted advisor to CEOs, association executives, nonprofit leaders, government officials, and international organizations facing high-stakes communications, public affairs, and organizational challenges.
Over more than three decades, I’ve served as a CEO, trade association executive, communications agency leader, and senior counselor to organizations working at the intersection of business, policy, technology, healthcare, education, and international affairs.
My work focuses on helping organizations:
• Align organizational strategy and communications with organizational values
• Strengthen reputation and stakeholder trust
• Develop compelling executive messaging and thought leadership
• Navigate complex public affairs and policy environments
• Clarify organizational positioning and purpose
Representative clients include the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates, the Association of American Medical Colleges, Tax Analysts, the National Association of Broadcasters, the Technology Student Association, and the Consumer Technology Association.
Prior to founding Starlight, I served as President of BCW Global’s Mid-Atlantic Region, President of SIIA, Senior Vice President at the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), Vice President of Communications at BIO, and Senior Vice President at Ogilvy Public Relations.
I’m particularly drawn to organizations whose missions improve lives, strengthen institutions, and serve the public good. I believe organizations are better positioned to flourish when their values guide both their strategy and their communications. Helping leaders make that connection—and communicate with clarity, credibility, and confidence—remains the most rewarding part of my work.
Perspectives
Ideas that inform
the work.
Selected articles by Jeff Joseph on leadership, communications, organizational culture, and values.
Messaging in the Muck: How Institutions Can Communicate with Clarity in Politically Charged Times
Five ways institutions can communicate in a polarized environment: anchor messages in values, use human language, frame the narrative, prepare early, and choose credible messengers.
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Empathy Isn’t Weakness. It’s Leadership.
Why disciplined empathy is a form of accountability—and how listening, understanding context, and acting decisively can strengthen trust and employee engagement.
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Getting the Brand Back Together - Passion, Focus and Deep Integration
Drawing on a workshop with Phone2Action, Jeff explores how leadership passion, mission clarity, and everyday employee behavior bring an organizational brand to life.
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You Can Go Home Again – Building Organizational Culture Through Alumni Employees
How relationships with former employees can reinforce organizational culture, preserve institutional knowledge, and build a lasting community of brand ambassadors.
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Principles Over Pressure: Lessons from Harvard and Princeton in the Age of Retaliation
A reflection on Harvard and Princeton’s responses to political pressure, and the lessons for leaders seeking to make institutional values visible through decisions and communications.
Read on LinkedIn
A Leadership Perspective
Executive & Association Leadership
President, BCW Global’s Mid-Atlantic Region
President, SIIA
Senior Vice President, Consumer Technology Association, including CES
Communications & Public Affairs
Vice President of Communications, BIO
Senior Vice President, Ogilvy Public Relations
Recognition & Education
PR News PR Professional of the Year
Washington 500 Most Influential
Princeton University, bachelor’s degree in religion
Beyond the Work
A commitment to
community.
Jeff serves on the boards of the Langston Boulevard Development Alliance and Read Early and Daily (R.E.A.D.), which helps children access quality, culturally relevant books.
Outside work, he enjoys time with his wife Lisa and their two daughters, playing guitar in a dad’s rock band, cooking, sports, and travel. The same curiosity and collaborative spirit inform how he works with clients.
A conversation is a good place to start.
What’s on your horizon?
Let’s talk about the challenges you face, the opportunities you see, and where experienced counsel could help.
Let’s Talk