The_Info_Web/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Risa Heller.md

category	tags	summary	location	relations	created	updated
Business & Finance	Person PublicRelations CrisisCommunications NewYork Media	New York crisis-communications consultant, formerly press secretary to Chuck Schumer, whose firm has represented Jared Kushner, Harvey Weinstein and Jeff Zucker.	New York City	type with start end fn employed_by Jane Harman 2004 2005 3 type with start role fn employed_by Chuck Schumer 2005 New York City press secretary 3 type with fn employed_by David Paterson 2 type with fn employed_by Global Strategy Group 1 type with fn spouse_of Ryan Toohey 1 type with start fn represented Anthony Weiner 2011 1 type with fn represented Jared Kushner 1 type with fn represented Kushner Companies 1 type with start fn represented Ivanka Trump 2017 4 type with start fn represented Harvey Weinstein 2015 1 type with fn represented Kevin Clash 1 type with fn represented Mario Batali 1 type with fn represented Win Butler 1 type with fn represented Jeffrey Toobin 1 type with fn represented Arthur Sulzberger Jr. 1 type with start fn represented Jeff Zucker 2022 1 type with start fn represented Jeff Shell 2023 3 type with start fn represented GPB Capital Holdings 2021 6 type with fn represented Verkada 7 type with start fn represented Casey Wasserman 2026 8	2026-09-22	2026-09-22

Risa Heller graduated from the University of Michigan in 2001, having majored in psychology and in Hebrew and Jewish cultural studies, and later took a master's degree in communications at Johns Hopkins University.¹² After an internship at the Washington office of the Anti-Defamation League, she worked for Representative Jane Harman of California from 2004 to 2005 and then, from 2005, as the New York City press secretary of Senator Chuck Schumer; she later held a similar post under Governor David Paterson of New York.¹²³ "I would be nobody, nothing, nowhere without Chuck," she told New York magazine in 2023. She also worked at the Democratic consulting firm Global Strategy Group, where she came to know her husband, Ryan Toohey, a former aide to Eliot Spitzer who became a partner at Dentons Global Advisors.¹

Risa Heller Communications

Heller founded Risa Heller Communications in 2010. It had eighteen employees in early 2023. It trades as Heller and has offices in New York and Los Angeles.¹²

Its first crisis client, in 2011, was Representative Anthony Weiner, then under scrutiny for sending an explicit photograph; she continued to advise him through his 2013 mayoral campaign and his 2017 case over messages to a minor.¹⁴ Jared Kushner and Kushner Companies were long-standing clients. The engagement began before the 2016 presidential campaign to handle press on Kushner's divestiture from the family business, and in January 2017 she defended him against a New York Times report on his dealings with a Chinese businessman. She then worked on the public image of Ivanka Trump as Ivanka Trump took up a White House role. Schumer said: "I told her I didn't approve of that."¹⁴

In 2015 Harvey Weinstein retained her against the accusation of the model Ambra Battilana, and she gave the Times his statement: "We are pleased this episode is behind us." Other clients recorded by New York magazine include Kevin Clash, the puppeteer of Elmo, against allegations of sex with teenagers (the cases were dismissed); the chef Mario Batali, accused of groping women; Win Butler of Arcade Fire; the legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin; and the former Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. in his divorce.¹ In January 2022 she represented Jeff Zucker when his relationship with his deputy, Allison Gollust, ended his presidency of CNN; he had been introduced to her by Gary Ginsberg, a former adviser to Rupert Murdoch. In 2023 she represented Jeff Shell on his dismissal as chief executive of NBCUniversal.¹³

She was reported to have helped Elizabeth Holmes, the convicted founder of Theranos, to place the New York Times profile "Liz Holmes Wants You to Forget About Elizabeth," published on May 7, 2023, three weeks before Holmes reported to prison.⁵ In February 2021 the spokesperson for GPB Capital Holdings, whose founder David Gentile had been arrested, was Linden Zakula of Heller's firm; he denied on GPB's behalf any part in 103 million dollars of land purchases in Clearwater, Florida, by limited liability companies owned by Scientology.⁶ The surveillance-camera maker Verkada retained the firm in about 2021.⁷

New York magazine described her closeness to the reporters who cover her clients: she hosted a book party for Maggie Haberman of the Times, and when a New Yorker writer began a profile of Jon Kelly of Puck, Kelly "called up Heller to run interference."¹

Epstein

In 2026 The Hollywood Reporter, surveying the crisis-communications consultants who had worked for Jeffrey Epstein (among them Dan Klores, to whose firm Epstein's company paid 10,000 dollars in January 2007), reported that Heller "never herself had any dealings with Epstein" and was then handling the fallout for Casey Wasserman, chairman of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic organizing committee, after the release of his correspondence with Ghislaine Maxwell.⁸

Footnotes

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1. McCreesh, Shawn. "Get Me Risa Heller!" New York (Intelligencer), February 14, 2023. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/risa-heller-communications-profile.html ↩︎

2. "Risa Heller," Heller (firm biography), modified March 28, 2025. https://heller.inc/employee/risa-heller/ ↩︎

3. Haithman, Diane. "Is Crisis PR Whiz Risa Heller Ready to Take On Hollywood?" TheWrap, August 14, 2023. https://www.thewrap.com/risa-heller-crisis-p-r-in-hollywood/ ↩︎

4. Perlberg, Steven. "Meet The New York City Democrat Flacking For Ivanka Trump." BuzzFeed News, April 14, 2017. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stevenperlberg/meet-the-new-york-city-democrat-flacking-for-ivanka-trump ↩︎

5. McCauley, Kevin. "Heller Helped Holmes on NYT Profile." O'Dwyer's, June 2, 2023, reporting the account of Charlotte Klein in Vanity Fair (not examined). https://www.odwyerpr.com/story/public/19690/2023-06-02/heller-helped-holmes-nyt-profile.html ↩︎

6. Augustine, Jeffrey. "GPB Capital Hires NYC PR Crisis Management Firm Risa Heller; Denies Any Role in $103 Million Clearwater Land Purchases Made by Murky Scientologist-Owned LLC's." The Scientology Money Project, February 26, 2021. https://scientologymoneyproject.com/2021/02/26/gpb-capital-hires-nyc-pr-crisis-management-firm-risa-heller-denies-any-role-in-103-million-clearwater-land-purchases-made-by-murky-scientologist-owned-llcs/ ↩︎

7. Honovich, John. "Meet Risa Heller, The PR Firm For Really Bad People (And Verkada)." IPVM, December 15, 2022. https://ipvm.com/discussions/meet-risa-heller-the-pr-firm-for-really-bad-people-and-verkada ↩︎

8. "Jeffrey Epstein Employed Top Hollywood Crisis Communications Experts, Reputation-Management Firms." The Hollywood Reporter, 2026. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/jeffrey-epstein-top-hollywood-crisis-communications-experts-reputation-management-firms-1236513028/ ↩︎