Founders
Setting the Standard
Forbes Tate Partners began with a simple idea: two former White House colleagues, each with a successful government relations firm of his own, wanted to work together again and build a client service business rooted in trust, strategy, and shared purpose.
Jeff Forbes and Dan Tate, Jr. founded the firm in 2012, bringing together campaign experience, senior government service, private-sector counsel, and a belief that effective advocacy depends on people who know how to work together. Their partnership helped define the tone and culture of a firm that grew from a dozen employees into a leading bipartisan public affairs consultancy with integrated capabilities.
Jeffrey Forbes brought to the firm a career built across political campaigns, congressional leadership, national party strategy, and White House service.
Before starting Forbes Tate Partners, Forbes was a founding partner at the firm’s predecessor, Cauthen Forbes & Williams, giving him direct experience building a government relations practice before he and Tate launched FTP together.
At FTP, Forbes’ legacy is visible in the firm’s disciplined strategic approach, its campaign-style understanding of timing and persuasion, and its respect for the complexity of public policy decision-making.
Dan Tate, Jr. brought more than 25 years of government relations experience to FTP, including a decade of senior staff roles in the White House, U.S. Department of Energy, and U.S. House of Representatives.
Before founding FTP with Forbes, Tate spent ten years in private practice at both large and boutique firms, representing Fortune 500 companies and major policy coalitions in sectors including energy, environment, telecommunications, and health care.
At FTP, Tate’s legacy is reflected in the firm’s focus on coalition management, strategic advising, bipartisan relationship-building, and the steady client service required to navigate complicated policy environments.
The Culture They Built
The founders’ influence can be seen most clearly in the firm’s culture. FTP describes that culture as a rarity in Washington, D.C.: an environment where familiarity, camaraderie, and intentional collaboration help teams produce results for clients.
That culture is grounded in five principles:
Collaboration: FTP emphasizes close work among colleagues and clients to create solutions, overcome challenges, and increase effectiveness
Adaptation: The firm describes the political landscape as constantly changing and emphasizes the need for tools and judgment to navigate that change
Innovation: FTP’s approach is tailored to each client because the firm believes one size does not fit all
Dedication: The firm describes itself as loyal and committed to its clients and their causes
Efficacy: FTP emphasizes moving the needle, adding value, being resourceful, and delivering results
The Founders’ Lasting Legacy
The story of Forbes Tate Partners is not only a story of growth. It is a story of tone, temperament, and the culture that makes growth sustainable.
Forbes and Tate built a firm around the idea that effective advocacy requires more than access or expertise. It requires judgment, trust, adaptability, and a team that can bring different experiences together in service of a client’s goals.
When the firm announced its transition to FTP, Forbes said he and Tate always knew the business was bigger than the two of them and described FTP as “a robust and dynamic organization powered by many, many good minds.”
Tate described the firm’s “single greatest accomplishment” as the talent it had attracted and retained, saying that the people of the firm had built it into what it is today.
That may be the clearest measure of the founders’ success: they built a firm whose culture could outgrow its original structure, whose people could carry the work forward, and whose future remains grounded in the standards they set.
Milestones in the Firm’s Growth
2012: The firm is founded
Jeff Forbes and Dan Tate, Jr. founded Forbes Tate Partners s a predominantly one-party government relations practice with a dozen employees, before expanding into a bipartisan, multi-faceted public affairs firm.
2021: A public company milestone
FTP went public on the London Stock Exchange as part of Public Policy Holding Company placingthe firm within a broader platform while preserving the client-service culture and leadership approach that guided its first decade.
2022: A decade in business
FTP celebrated its tenth anniversary and growth from a dozen employees to nearly 80 employees as Forbes and Tate sought to shape FTP’s future and capabilities in a changing advocacy landscape adding technology, design, creative, advocacy, and advertising capabilities to the firm’s public affairs platform.
2026: A new chapter as FTP
The firm announced its first leadership change since its founding and said it would formally change its name to FTP to reflect management changes and the evolution of the business model.
Forbes became Founding Partner and Chairman, focusing on long-term strategy, business development, and work with Public Policy Holding Company, while Tate stepped away from the firm after a long battle with ALS and continued advocating for people affected by neurological diseases through his board membership with I AM ALS.