Matt Raymond
The International Food Information Council has named Matt Raymond as its director of communications.

Raymond served as director of speechwriting for Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman and served briefly as acting communications director for Veneman and for Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns.

He also served as senior communications adviser for Veneman during her first two years as executive director at UNICEF in New York.

He returned to Washington as director of communications at the Library of Congress, where he served for almost five years. Earlier, he worked on Capitol Hill for eight years as a communications director for two senators and chief of staff for a congressman.

A graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism in Evanston, Ill., he began his career as an on-air, small-market TV reporter. In 2013, Raymond began his fourth term on the Advisory Neighborhood Commission in Washington's Logan Circle and was elected chairman of the eight-member commission.