NFL Appoints Joe Lockhart, Cynthia Hogan to Executive Vice President

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell named two new executive vice presidents. Veteran strategic communicator Joe Lockhart will be the league’s EVP of Communications. Cynthia Hogan, who joined the NFL in September 2014 as Senior Vice President of Government Affairs, was promoted to Executive Vice President of Public Policy and Government Affairs.

Both positions report to NFL Chief Operating Officer Tod Leiweke.

Lockhart, who has advised corporations, individuals, political campaigns and government officials at the highest levels and in the most complex environments, joins the NFL from The Glover Park Group, the Washington, DC-based strategic communications and government affairs firm he co-founded. He will oversee and direct league office initiatives for communications, social responsibility and community relations.

Hogan will expand her role to provide public policy expertise across the league on a wide range of issues. She also will continue to work closely with NFL teams on local and state issues. Hogan has served as the NFL’s interim communications chief since September.

Lockhart was White House press secretary and senior adviser to President Bill Clinton from 1998-2000. He also was a senior advisor and press secretary to several presidential campaigns over two decades.

Lockhart has built deep corporate communications experience across his career, including as vice president of global communications for Facebook with responsibility for corporate, policy and international communications.

Previously, Lockhart built substantial experience inside newsrooms, as assignment editor at ABC News, deputy assignment manager for CNN in Washington, and foreign producer for SKY Television News, Europe’s first 24-hour television broadcast news service.

Hogan is the former Deputy Assistant to the President and Counsel to the Vice President of the United States. As part of the White House staff from 2009 to 2013, she analyzed complex legal and policy issues for the Obama Administration. Hogan led numerous special projects, including the Obama Administration’s effort to confirm Justice Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court and also helped coordinate the administration’s gun violence proposals.

Prior to joining the White House, Hogan was Chief Counsel, Staff Director, and Counsel for Constitutional Law for the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary from 1991 to 1996.