Meet Risa Heller, The PR Firm For Really Bad People (And Verkada)

JH
John Honovich
Dec 15, 2022
IPVM

Unless you are a beltway or media person, you may have never heard of Risa Heller, the eponymous PR firm that specializes in running cover for bad people (and Verkada, which is how I interacted with them).

This week, their firm is in the news supporting newly arrested SBF, e.g.:

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A year ago, when Verkada hired Risa Heller, I put together a list of the various clients of just one of her staff members:

I find it hard to imagine that anyone would want to run a business doing public relations for these types of people. It's like they decided to dedicate their time to helping those who have been bullied, but then said, "Well actually, we get paid more to support the bullies."

Last year, a White House aide threatened to "destroy" a reporter. Where he did work next? Risa Heller, of course. How did I know? One day, he was just cc:ed on messages to us about Verkada's latest issue.

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JH
John Honovich
Dec 15, 2022
IPVM

Risa Heller said her goal in college was to work for a non-profit and originally thought the idea of starting a PR firm was "crazy".

Most notable, as it relates to defending bad people, was when the interviewer asked Heller "how do you represent people whose beliefs don't necessarily align with yours or whose actions you don't condone."

Heller's response: "This is a non-ideological company like we work on things that we don't love we work on things that we do love and like we give them both sets of them the same amount of attention and care."

Evidently, it's "ideological" to not back up (alleged) fraudsters.

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JH
John Honovich
Dec 23, 2023
IPVM

A fascinating profile from the New Yorker earlier this year: Risa Heller Is a Crisis-Communications Warrior for Bad Press

There are dozens of interesting points made, a few about the close relationship between Heller and journalists raised concerns, to me, about conflict of interest:

“When you’ve got these high-profile clients with really high-profile problems, you’ve got leverage, and she knows how to use leverage,” says Ginsberg. “You don’t want to cross her. If you renege on a promise, she can be really fierce. She knows who your editor is, and she won’t give you that next story.”

Heller hosted a book party for Times star reporter Maggie Haberman at her apartment in a former industrial building with views of the East River. (Zillow estimates its resale value to be a bit under $5 million.) Haberman’s colleagues, including Jodi Kantor, Michael Barbaro, Jeremy Peters, Carolyn Ryan, Elisabeth Bumiller, and Rebecca Blumenstein (now the NBC News boss) mingled alongside Zucker,

Heller has made a sport of befriending journalists. “She will go toe to toe with a reporter, kick their ass, yell at their editor, and then be invited to be the godmother of their child, and I’m only exaggerating a little bit,” says Heller’s friend Jonathan Rosen, co-founder of rival communications firm BerlinRosen. “I’ve often wondered how she does this.” One Times reporter tells me later that she’s so tight with Heller that she didn’t feel comfortable putting down a deposit on a wedding dress without consulting her first. Others say they call Heller for career advice, for story ideas, to do yoga with

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