How do I book Josh King for my event?

Booking Josh King with Premiere Speakers Bureau is a streamlined 4-step process: 1. Availability Check: Contact us with your event date and budget to verify if your desired speaker is available. 2. Hold Date: We place a temporary 'hold' on the speaker's calendar while you finalize internal approval. 3. Contracting: We issue a contract outlining the fee, cancellation policy, and event expectations. 4. Logistics: Once signed, our event management team handles all travel booking, itinerary, and AV requirements.

Why should I partner with Premiere Speakers Bureau rather than contacting speakers directly?

Partnering with Premiere Speakers Bureau provides a comprehensive safety net for your event that direct booking cannot match. You get the same speaker for the same price, but with a dedicated team with over 30 years of event experience handling contracts, logistics, and are prepared for any emergency. We know what it takes to run an excellent event.

What makes Premiere Speakers Bureau unique compared to other agencies?

Premiere Speakers Bureau distinguishes itself by having over 30 years of experience while partnering with more than 35,000 events. PSB has also built a streamlined, fully online process that makes booking a speaker, handling travel and payments extremely easy for anyone looking to plan a speaker led event.

How does Premiere Speakers Bureau's 'Zero Cost Service' model work?

Premiere Speakers Bureau operates on a 'Zero Cost Service' model for event planners. Our services—including research, booking, and logistics—are always free to the client. The speaker covers our commission from their standard honorarium as payment for our role in marketing and managing their engagements.

How are speaker fees structured, and what is typically included?

A speaker's fee typically covers the keynote presentation, a pre-event planning call, and standard customization. Travel expenses are usually billed separately.

What are the standard policies for speaker travel and expenses?

Travel expenses are negotiated during contracting. We generally recommend a flat travel fee for simplicity, though we also offer line-by-line invoicing when preferred. PSB ensures these expenses adhere to professional standards, and our Event Portal allows for easy tracking and invoicing.

Josh King

Former director of production for presidential events for President Clinton

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Josh King
Biography

Josh King is the author of OFF SCRIPT: An Advance Man's Guide to White House Stagecraft, Campaign Spectacle, and Political Suicide. The book, his first, was published by St. Martin's Press in April, 2016.

King was raised outside of Boston, Mass., graduated from Swarthmore College in 1987 and, later, completed the Program for Global Leadership at Harvard Business School. He entered politics after college, working first for the presidential campaign of Illinois Senator Paul Simon followed by service the general election cycle for Mike Dukakis and Lloyd Bentsen. He returned to politics after a hiatus to work for Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas, producing events in large cities and small towns across America.

King joined the White House Staff in February, 1993, first as one of the president's schedulers and, later that year, as director of production for presidential events, the person tasked with designing and orchestrating President Clinton's public events at the White House, around the U.S., and overseas. His campaign work and five years in the White House brought him to 48 states around the country and 40 countries around the world. He is credited with bringing many innovations to presidential communications.

After his White House service, King worked as a political and corporate communications consultant before becoming vice president of media and community relations for The Hartford Financial Services Group (NYSE: HIG) in Hartford, Conn. He later moved to New York City, where joined Willis Group Holdings (NYSE: WSH) as senior vice president of marketing and communications. Since 2014, he has served as senior vice president for global communications of First Data Corporation (NYSE: FDC).

King is a regular speaker on the intersection of politics, media and entertainment. He hosted SiriusXM's weekend public affairs show, "Polioptics," for three years from 2011 to 2014, and has appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Bloomberg's "With All Due Respect, as well as many other cable outlets, shows and podcasts. He has and authored articles for TIME, Fortune, POLITICO magazine, Men's Vogue, Brill's Content, The Washington Post and Variety. In the 1990s, he created one of the first political blogs, "Wanderings," for SpeakOut.com. A member of the Writers Guild of America, King also wrote for NBC's "American Dreams" and produced a dramatic series pilot set in the White House for Lifetime Television.

King lives in Greenwich Village and Windham, New York with his wife, two kids, and a Rhodesian Ridgeback named Huckleberry Finn.

Josh King
Featured Videos

Current: New York Public Library "Young Lions Forum"

Time 37:23

Josh King
Featured Keynote Programs

Polioptics

The Theater of Politics, from George Washington to Barack Obama and Beyond

Josh King’s original 250-image multi-media survey of American political theater first given on college campuses in 2009, from George Washington crossing the Delaware in Emanuel Leutze’s iconic painting, to Alexander Gardner and Mathew Brady’s wet glass collodions of Abraham Lincoln, to photographs of Barack Obama at the Beer Summit in 2009 – and beyond. This talk focuses on how the presidency has been presented during throughout the history of the American Republic through an ever more complex process of theatrical stagecraft, image manufacture, and media distribution.

Deconstructing Presidential and Campaign Trail Imagery

We watch news broadcasts, read newspapers and surf through blogs and social media content every hour of every day, our brains conditioned to react in certain ways to what we see and hear. But how much do we really understand about how that imagery and those soundbites are manufactured and distributed for public consumption? In this talk, Josh King reviews the prior month of political spectacle and deconstructs it into its component parts so that citizens can bring a more trained eye to the visual catnip they’re fed through various mediums.

The Biology, Psychology, Geometry, Engineering and Mapping of the Political Gaffe in the Age of Optics

Mike Dukakis and the tank. George H.W. Bush and the supermarket scanner. Bob Dole’s fall from stage. Al Gore’s canoe ride down the Connecticut River. George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished. Howard Dean’s scream. John Kerry’s windsurfing. John McCain’s maverick marketing. Mitt Romney’s singing. Barack Obama’s “Vanilla Presidency.” All of these scenes unfolded in what Josh King calls the “Age of Optics” from 1988 to the present, but the reasons that they were truly catastrophic is little understood. In this talk, King helps audiences understand the core ingredients and key players of the political gaffe and how to see campaign stagecraft from many angles and under a whole new light.

The Age of Optics, from Clinton to Trump

Armed with a menagerie of images and videos that make people stop, think and reflect, the man who helped shape the unique brand of Bill Clinton's political stagecraft brings audiences on a multi-media guided tour through the Age of Optics, ultimately leading to the election of Donald Trump. The stops on King's tour will be immediately familiar to many: Dukakis and the tank, Bush and the supermarket scanner, the Dean Scream, "Mission Accomplished" on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln. But the real stories King shares behind those moments and images, and how the media fed them to the public, help to explain why, when Donald Trump descended his escalator to launch his campaign, the clock began to tick on his ascendancy to the White House. King's talk pulls back the curtain on Campaign 2016 and lays out a road map for candidates in 2020 and beyond who aspire to the highest office in the land.