Wayne L Berman

After more than 25 years in the nation’s capital, Wayne Berman holds an almost unmatched position at the crossroads of policy, politics and campaign finance. Berman’s government service helped establish him as one of Washington’s quietly influential insiders on both domestic and foreign policy. President George Bush appointed Berman Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Policy in January 1989, a post from which he was the principal adviser to the Secretary of Commerce, served as the official US liaison to foreign business groups and oversaw more than 60 projects that resulted in new export orders for US goods. Berman spent his time out of government building his own business and managing others. He is the founder of Berman Enterprises, a lobbying and business consulting firm, which merged with Ogilvy Government Relations in January 2004. He is the Vice Chairman of JLT America, a London based international insurance brokerage. In the early 1990s, he served as a managing partner of America Mercantile Group, a private merchant bank. And he was the managing partner of a Washington consulting firm from 1985 to 1988. Berman has played a substantive political role in just about every Republican presidential campaign of the last generation. He was a senior advisor to the Bush/Cheney transition in 2001, the vice presidential campaign director for Dole/Kemp and deputy director of the Republican National Convention in 1996, director of congressional relations during the Bush/Quayle campaign in 1988 and a deputy director of the Bush/Reagan transition team in 1981. He has served in a variety of fundraising capacities in every Republican presidential race since 1992. Berman has served on the board of trustees for the Library of Congress, the Center for Strategic and International Studies as well as the Center for the Study of the Presidency and helped lead campaigns for So Others May Eat, (SOME). He has appeared on CNN and CNBC. A native of Rochester, NY, Berman received his BA from the University of Buffalo and attended graduate school at Georgetown.