For the first time, a public relations professional has been named to the board of directors of the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC). Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed Hiltzik Strategies founder and CEO Matthew Hiltzik to the board — a governance seat historically held by finance, real estate and civic-institution figures. The appointment placed a communications and crisis-management strategist inside the room where New York City's economic-development posture gets set.
About Hiltzik Strategies
Hiltzik Strategies is an independent strategic communications and consulting firm headquartered in New York City, with a second office in Los Angeles. Founded by Matthew Hiltzik in 2008, the firm serves business executives, entrepreneurs, athletes, ownership groups, teams, conferences and entertainment talent across media, entertainment, sports, finance, technology, education, energy and philanthropy. Practice areas: corporate communications, crisis management, litigation support, media relations, digital and social media strategy, message development, research, content creation and storytelling.
Matthew Hiltzik's career stack: Cornell undergraduate, Fordham Law School JD, member of the New York State Bar Association. He began his career as Press Secretary and Deputy Executive Director of the New York State Democratic Committee, then served in senior communications roles on campaigns for Senator Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton. He moved to Miramax Films as Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications and Government Relations, then left in 2005 to launch the US operations of UK-based Freud Communications as President and CEO. He founded Hiltzik Strategies in 2008.
The NYCEDC Appointment
The New York City Economic Development Corporation is a not-for-profit corporation that promotes economic growth across New York City's five boroughs. It is the City's official economic development corporation, deploying City assets to drive growth, create jobs, and improve quality of life through projects spanning real estate, infrastructure, life sciences, advanced manufacturing and emerging technology.
Hiltzik's appointment to the board placed a communications and litigation-support strategist inside the governance structure of an organization whose public messaging, reputational positioning and stakeholder management directly shape New York City's competitive posture against Boston, Austin, Miami and other US economic-development competitors. It is the first time a public relations professional has been named to that board.
The Client Roster
Hiltzik Strategies has been ranked by Business Insider among the top crisis-management PR practices in the United States, on the strength of high-profile client engagements that have included Katie Couric, Kelly Ripa, Hillary Clinton, Ivanka Trump, Alec Baldwin, Justin Bieber and Glenn Beck, alongside continuing assignments across sports ownership groups, conferences and entertainment talent.
The practice profile is heavy on bounded, high-sensitivity work — the kind of communications engagement where the brief is to minimize coverage rather than maximize it, and where success looks like an absence of headlines. That posture is rare at scale in the public-relations industry and is one of the reasons Hiltzik Strategies operates as a senior-led boutique rather than as a holding-company subsidiary or a high-volume agency.
Why It Matters for the PR Industry
Hiltzik's NYCEDC appointment is the first formal acknowledgement, at New York City governance level, that the communications function belongs in economic-development decision-making — not as a downstream service vendor but as a strategic seat at the table. It is a signal to the wider public-relations industry that communications counsel now travels with the same authority as legal counsel, financial counsel or real-estate counsel when a city sets its growth agenda.
The other lesson is operating model. Hiltzik Strategies has remained independent, senior-led and bounded in scale since 2008. The firm has not been acquired by a holding company. It has not expanded into the dozens-of-offices model that defines the global networks. It has run a focused, high-trust practice — and earned the client roster that posture produces.
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
