William Hamilton
Executive Vice President, Washington, D.C.
When a lifelong lover of thoroughbreds wanted to build a campaign to stop American horses from being slaughtered for export and human consumption, he asked Bill Hamilton to devise a strategy. The result: the National Horse Protection League, a grassroots organization of horse lovers who contributed money, contacted members of Congress and recruited friends and family to the cause that went from zero to thousands of members in a three-year period.
Bill Hamilton is not a horse person but he is a strategist. For more than three decades in politics, the labor movement and nonprofit advocacy he has figured out how to harness passion and volunteerism to create change. Once a print journalist, Hamilton now knows how to mix traditional press outreach with interactive media, advertising and public motion to make things happen.
Hamilton specializes in strategic communications for labor unions including the California Nurses Association and Service Employees International Union. He also heads Fenton’s Latin American practice, drawing on his experience as a Buenos Aires-based foreign correspondent to work for progressive governments and NGOs. A native of Texas, Hamilton came to Washington to serve a US Senator, then edited a book and helped create co-ops to fight poverty in the Mississippi Delta and Washington’s Yakima Valley. He was communications director and chief of staff for AFSCME, the public employee union, and led a reform movement in the Teamsters union. As vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, he built an advocacy campaign to protect the right to choose. With Fenton since 1998, he has served a wide range of clients including foundations and advocates for education and criminal justice reform. A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, he raises vegetables and goats in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
