Jessica Yabsley Joins Beeck Center as New Director of Communications
This month, the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation at Georgetown University welcomed Jessica Yabsley as its new director of communications. With deep experience in both the non-profit and public sectors, Yabsley will spearhead the center’s communications strategies around its efforts to improve systems for all using data, design, and technology.
“Jessica Yabsley’s deep experience in strategic communications and proven track record helping lead mission driven organizations will accelerate the Beeck Center’s work driving positive change through data, design, and technology,” said Lynn Overmann, executive director of the Beeck Center. “We are thrilled to welcome her to the Beeck Center leadership team and look forward to the many valuable contributions she will bring to the center’s initiatives.”
“At the Beeck Center we’re not just talking about change—we engineer it through data, design, policy, and technology, ” said Yabsley. “I am delighted to join the Beeck Center’s growing team, and lead the strategic communications efforts as we build a more informed, inclusive, and equitable society.”
Yabsley joins the Beeck Center from the Data Foundation—a D.C.-based organization focused on improving government, business, and society through open data and evidence-based public policy—where she served as the senior director for external affairs. Most notably, in that role she led the strategic communications team for the organization’s COVID Household Impact Survey, developing and executing a communications plan that launched a $1.74 million national survey about the impacts of COVID-19 on U.S. households. Previously, as the Data Foundation’s senior communication strategist, she fostered relationships with various stakeholders—including the Board of Directors, association members and peer organizations, industry leaders, journalists, and policymakers such as members of congressional and federal agency leaders—to advance practical policy solutions related to federal data. Yabsley was also the communications lead that launched the Data Foundation in 2016.
Before joining the Data Foundation, Yabsley served as the Director of Communications at the Data Coalition, a trade association that advocated for the open data law like the DATA Act of 2014 and Evidence Act. Prior to her tenure at the Data Coalition she gained legislative and policy experience by working for Australian members of Parliament at the federal and state levels, as well as serving as a legislative fellow in the U.S. House of Representatives.