As National Engagements Director for America’s largest membership organization with 38 million people, Pete Jeffries pushes the three C’s to drive business growth and team success: connecting, communicating, and collaborating.

Known for his strategic leadership and organizational management, Pete leads a business development start-up to boost membership and revenue. Focused on creating innovative programs and partnerships, AARP’s Veterans and Military Families Initiative delivers a suite of value-added products and services on caregiving, fighting fraud, and securing employment unmatched in the non-profit Veterans marketspace. Prior to this brand-building, customer-experience start-up, Pete led the organization’s Congressional Relations and Political Affairs Department, while commuting weekly from his home near Des Moines, Iowa, to Washington, DC.

Armed with a top-ranked MBA, Pete applies analytical reasoning and negotiation skills with multi-disciplinary team leadership and integrated strategic planning to fuel consumer engagement, bolster brand equity, and exceed business objectives. In two years, Pete’s innovations already have over-performed organizational expectations:

• Increased website visits by 150%, with secondary content clicks up 400% on core product offerings of caregiving, fighting fraud, finding jobs, connecting to earned benefits;
• Consistently delivered the highest metrics performance of any one program area on AARP’s top communications channels, including AARP.org, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube; and,
• Spurred 23% target audience membership growth, worth $14.4 million in gross revenue.

Prior to AARP, Pete led Hill & Knowlton Washington’s geopolitical public policy practice and directed communications and political projects in congressional leadership under two Speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives. He’s consistently built a reputation for delivering results, brand equity, and organizational value in complex organizations by advising CEO’s, boards of directors, heads of state, and other clients on issues development, reputational and crisis management, and strategic communications and marketing. As an award-winning broadcaster and public affairs executive, he’s been recognized by The Des Moines Register as “media savvy and proactive.”

As a two-time graduate from the University of Iowa, Pete is former National Chair of the UI Alumni Association’s Board of Directors, serves on the UI Journalism-Mass Communication School’s Professional Advisory Board, and provides guest lectures on politics, public affairs, business development and negotiations. He and his wife Kristin, also a UI grad, have two children – an Iowa Hawkeye sophomore majoring in business and a Waukee (IA) High School cheerleader.