Ashley Vanarsdall
Ashley Vanarsdall has extensive public affairs experience handling media relations for a number of companies undergoing governmental scrutiny and involved in high-profile litigation.
Working with the nation's leading computer and video game publishers, Vanarsdall devised communications strategies and handled day-to-day media relations for the Entertainment Software Association at a time when it was involved in litigation with states and localities seeking to limit access to content. In this job she also coordinated strategies and messaging concerning the relevance of games, the effects of media violence and worldwide piracy.
Vanarsdall earlier was manager of media relations at Powell Tate, a Washington, D.C., public affairs firm, where she handled media relations and crisis communications for a number of local, national and international clients. Her clients included a foreign association whose product was under attack from legislators and regulators in several states, a national religious leader involved in a heated dispute that led to litigation, and a retailer facing national protests and legislation concerning the retailer's key product offering.
As media manager at Smith & Harroff in Alexandria, Va., Vanarsdall worked on an advocacy campaign to prevent smoking and devised media strategies for Republican candidates. She began her career as a production assistant at the NBC affiliate in Philadelphia, and was an assistant editor at Condé Nast Publications in New York.
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