Kris M. Balderston is the President of Balderston Strategic Partnerships and the National Political Director and Founding Advisor for Change Research, which provides fast, affordable and accurate technology-based polling to forward-thinking candidates and causes.
During his career, he has had diverse and enriching experiences working at the state and federal level including stints on Capitol Hill, the State Department, and the White House. Prior to Change Research, he was the general manager of Fleishman Hillard’s Washington office and its first President of Global Public Affairs. In these roles, Balderston promoted innovative ways of approaching issues through communications, partnerships, and market-driven initiatives, generating results in both the public and private sectors. As Hillary Clinton’s first legislative director in the Senate and later as Secretary Clinton’s Special Representative on Global Partnerships, Balderston created multiple efforts to convene uncommon partners around solutions. These included the creation of the Global Partnership Initiative which raised over a billion dollars for global problems, the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, the first Global Diaspora Forum, and the creation of the first government-sponsored impact investing forum which brought together corporations, NGO’s, and foundations. The Global Partnership Initiative resulted in a Harvard Business School case study.
Balderston continues to advise foundations, academic institutions, corporate leaders, elected officials, and think tanks on their strategies to meet their goals. He also serves on the board of the Clean Cooking Alliance. He is a graduate of LeMoyne College and Georgetown University