Alex Edwards is Director of Communications at The Century Foundation, one of the nation’s top progressive think tanks. He leads TCF’s work to shape public opinion, strengthen advocacy networks, and elevate the organization’s ideas and impact in the press and among policymakers. During Alex’s tenure, TCF has grown significantly—across earned media, digital and web, on Capitol Hill, and in state legislatures—helping the 100-year-old organization to more than double in size in just five years.
Alex has spearheaded Century’s expansion into the areas of public opinion research, message testing, data visualization, video and podcasts, media partnerships, and more. In recent years, he has helped develop and lead multiple policy campaigns with outsized impact, such as TCF’s successful push to secure $800+ billion in extra unemployment aid at the start of COVID-19, keeping millions of families from falling into poverty. Most recently, he guided TCF’s groundbreaking work to bring attention to the nationwide “child care cliff” and put it at the center of the political map.
Prior to TCF, Alex was a senior strategist at BerlinRosen (BR), a top political communications agency. He joined the then-nascent firm in 2012 to launch a fast-food worker campaign, which would become the Fight for $15 and ignite a nationwide movement to raise wages. At BR, Alex advised 60+ of the country’s leading nonprofit, research, advocacy, and political clients on a wide range of issues, moving from D.C. to New York to build out the firm’s philanthropy practice. A born and bred Michigander, Alex is most proud of his work leading communications strategy for a group of 12 foundations as they developed the “Grand Bargain” to settle Detroit’s bankruptcy, a role that one foundation president referred to as the “silver bullet” to the city’s solvency.
Earlier in his career, Alex worked as a research assistant at the National Poverty Center and on President Obama’s re-election campaign in Colorado. He has a background in human rights and international affairs, having worked at both Amnesty International USA and Human Rights First. A prolific ghostwriter on everything from stump speeches to academic reports, his work has appeared in a variety of publications, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Atlantic. Alex studied at the London School of Economics and the University of Michigan, where he was awarded the William Jennings Bryan Prize, given to the school’s top political science graduate, and the Harold D. Osterweil Memorial Prize from the economics department.