Former Bush Communications Director Hughes To Be Summit Keynote Address
9/12/2003
Organizers of the 2004 NFIB Small Business Summit have announced that former White House Communications Director Karen Hughes will anchor the meeting as keynote speaker.
Hughes will serve as the primary speaker at the Summit's Gala Dinner event on June 18, 2004.
Hughes has been described as "the most powerful woman ever to serve in the White House" (Dallas Morning News) and President George W. Bush's "most essential advisor" (ABC News). "The rule of thumb in any White House is that nobody is indispensable except the president," said The New York Times, "But Karen Hughes has come as close to that description as any recent presidential aide."
As Counselor to the President for his first eighteen months in the White House and as his communications director since he first ran for the office of Texas governor in 1994, Hughes has been a crucial influence in President Bush's inner circle.
During her tenure in the Bush White House, Hughes advised the president on a wide range of issues, crafted the communications and message strategy for the administration and was responsible for overseeing the Offices of Press Secretary, Media Affairs, Speechwriting and Communications. She helped develop and lead the international communications effort during the early months of the war against terror and was instrumental in creating the new White House Office of Global Communications.
Though she left the White House in the summer of 2002, Hughes continues to advise President Bush on communications strategy through a retainer arrangement with the Republican National Committee.
Hughes served as Director of Communications for both of President's Bush's gubernatorial campaigns in 1994 and 1998. She also served as Director of Communications in Governor's Bush's state office throughout his tenure as Governor.
Hughes is a former Executive Director of the Republican Party of Texas and a former television news reporter for KXAS-TV, the NBC affiliate in Dallas/Fort Worth. She is a Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude graduate of Southern Methodist University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Journalism.
NFIB's fourth biennial National Small Business Summit is slated for June 16-18 in Washington, D.C. and is expected to draw more than 600 of the nation's most active small business owners and top Congressional leaders together to explore the issues most critical to small business in America.
