FEATURED
SERVICES
COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY + PLANNING
Planning and calendaring to differentiate you in a crowded media landscape, with key moments and keen observations.
CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS
Working with care and urgency when you most need to communicate your story externally and internally.
MEDIA + SPEECH COACHING
Working with you to deliver your own message with clarity and confidence, and to be prepared for any question.
MESSAGE
DEVELOPMENT
Helping you communicate your strongest facts, tell compelling stories, and anticipate questions.
MEDIA OUTREACH
Finding the right reporters and opinion leaders, and pitching them your unique news.
ISSUE
CAMPAIGNS
Work with other teams on paid and owned channels to drive a narrative and spark action.
Helping leaders, candidates, and entrepreneurs in the public, private, political, and non-profit sectors build trust and drive change since 2001.
ABOUT ELLEN QUALLS
As the principal strategist of PR firm Qualls Communications, Ellen Qualls advises organizations, leaders, and aspiring leaders in the public, political, private, and nonprofit sectors. She helps develop compelling messages, media strategies, and crisis responses. She does coaching for media appearances, speeches, and debates.
In the Biden Administration, Ellen joined the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in 2021 as Chief Communications Officer, seeing the office through leadership transitions and major policy responses to the climate crisis, pandemic, and tech accountability issues. Ellen also served pro bono as a press and communications lead on the Biden-Harris Transition, helping senior Department of Justice nominees through Senate confirmation, including the head of the Civil Rights Division – just as she had for President Obama’s first Secretary of Energy.
Ellen served as Senior Advisor for Strategic Planning to Speaker Nancy Pelosi for all four years of her first historic speakership, helping coordinate communications among House and Senate Democrats and the White House on the Affordable Care Act, the Recovery Act, Wall Street Reform, and other major legislation. Ellen was a senior communications advisor for five years to then-Governor, now Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, from his inauguration to leaving office with an 80% approval rating in the last Washington Post poll, as well as for his federal leadership PAC.
In politics, Ellen was Director of Surrogate Communications for President Obama’s re-election in 2012, served as senior advisor to Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe’s winning 2013 campaign, advised former Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring through campaigns and two terms in statewide office, and worked with candidates for office in California, Illinois, Mississippi, and Texas.
From 2015 to 2018, Ellen led communications and public affairs for a residential renewable energy and energy efficiency financing company in southern California. Ellen was a 2011 Resident Fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard, has an English degree from the University of Virginia, and is a former TV, radio, and weekly newspaper reporter, inducted in 2023 into the Virginia Capitol Correspondents Association Hall of Fame.
CONTACT ELLEN
ADDRESS
107 S. West Street, Suite 461
Alexandria, VA 22314