Mayor Brandon Scott has hired a new head of communications, a Washington-based publicist who served as a senior advisor to the 2024 Harris-Walz presidential campaign.

Kamau M. Marshall started yesterday at the $185,000-a-year post, replacing Bryan Doherty, Scott’s former spokesman, who will stay on as deputy chief of staff.

Marshall is Scott’s fifth spokesperson. He follows Doherty, Cirilo Manego, Monica Lewis, Cal Harris and Stefanie Mavronis, currently director of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE).

A graduate of Texas Southern University who lived for a time as a child in Baltimore, “Marshall has spent the last decade working in government and as a communications strategist in both the public and private sectors,” says an office memo obtained by The Brew.

He will be tasked with explaining and selling Scott’s ambitious second-term agenda, which includes reducing crime, reversing the influx of vacant housing, helping city schools, investing in job development, and reviving a flagging downtown business district.

Getting the city’s annual homicide count below 300 was perhaps Scott’s greatest accomplishment during his first term.

Job Hopping

A review of Marshall’s work history indicates that he has held 16 positions since starting as a field organizer in Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign.

Among his jobs were:

Assistant to the late U.S. Representative Elijah Cumming of Maryland (2015-16), communications director for Representative Al Green of Texas (2017-18), advisor and deputy press secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (2018-19), a member of Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign (2019-2020), spokesman for the Biden Presidential Inaugural Committee (2020-21), deputy assistant trade representative for media and public affairs at the White House (2021-23), and senior advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona (2023-24).

He was one of the few Black senior male advisors for the Harris campaign, winning praise from former Obama campaign adviser Ameshia Cross for his ability “to lead and engage those Black men who feel as though the party has left them or is not meeting their needs at this moment.”

His website says he has also worked in the entertainment field, focusing on purpose-driven messaging, and is a skilled coalition builder.

Known as the “Organic Gentleman,” the bio says, he enjoys reading, quality time with family and friends, deep sea fishing and traveling when time permits.

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Marshall’s Employment History, according to LegiStorm.com: