Jared Willis, after founding an independent government affairs firm last fall, is now officially flying his flag as Catalyst Strategies.
As a full-service government and public affairs consulting firm, Catalyst Strategies specializes in health care policy. Willis shepherded some major wins through the process on his first outing but wanted to let the firm find an identity before choosing a name. He said the inspiration for Catalyst Strategies came from his clients.
"I went out on my own right before last Session. I knew the direction I wanted to go and the results I wanted to deliver for my clients, but I was still trying to figure out the identity for the company. After a wildly successful Session, the word 'catalyst' kept coming up in conversations with clients."
It's not unusual to spot Willis in the Capitol Rotunda going back and forth between the House, the Senate, and the executive branch offices on the Plaza level, like a ping-pong ball. He's been making these rounds for years. Willis, a Florida Bar-certified attorney, is a former legislative aide to Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, served as the Director of Government Affairs for the Florida Osteopathic Medical Association, and most recently was the Government Affairs Manager at Strategos Group, where he led their health care practice.
Willis says he wants his firm to be known for building momentum and driving value to clients.
"I like working on the tough issues, the ones that look impossible, where the odds are not in our favor. I love finding creative ways to shift momentum or put a spark behind a client's initiative. I wanted my company to embody that," he said.
A casual observer might mistake Willis' hustle for good old-fashioned shoe-leather lobbying, but to his clients, it's so much more.
Terry Wilcox, CEO of Patients Rising, a national patient advocacy organization represented by Willis in Tallahassee, sings his praises, "I've never seen such a creative approach to advocacy. I think it would be difficult to describe Catalyst Strategies as just a lobby shop — though that's certainly part of it — because Jared's methods are so out-of-the-box. Our opponents don't even know we've beaten them yet."
Willis describes his approach as combining proactive ground game and strategic opportunism.
"A lot of the issues I work on, I go up against powerful opponents like the trial bar or the health plans. This last Session, we created some big wins that made it easy for clients to justify their advocacy investment. I like to think it's because we laid the groundwork for that momentum months in advance. We were tipping dominoes well before our opponents were paying attention," he said.
When asked what the next five years look like for Catalyst Strategies, Willis responded "If I were to describe our approach simply, we build momentum. In five years, we'll be able to look back on some big wins for our clients because we acted as a catalyst, put a spark behind their initiative, and created measurable progress. Momentum is a hard thing to build and we want to have a reputation for excelling in that field."
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