Amber Macdonald, Managing Director and Co-head of Executive Communications, SKDK

Macdonald last spoke at WeLead2025 about story telling and speechwriting. She is a former Special Assistant to President Joe Biden and longtime chief speechwriter to First Lady Jill Biden. She has also served as a top speechwriter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and Congressman Jim McDermott. Outside the government, she’s ghostwritten for CEOs, award-winning actors, and thought leaders who’ve become household names. Her speeches have received bipartisan praise, with major publications calling them “powerful,” “moving,” and “a rare political address that genuinely spoke to the moment.”

Macdonald helped Dr. Biden cement her legacy as First Lady in the first two and a half years of her term after serving as her only speechwriter during the 2020 campaign. At the Department of Health and Human Services, she translated complex and confusing health care policy into stories that touched people’s hearts. She developed agency-wide messaging guidance for Secretary Burwell’s Delivery System Reform initiative and was a strategist behind many Affordable Care Act campaigns.

Between government roles, Macdonald founded her own executive communications shop, where she helped leaders from heads of international corporations to advocates just launching their public platform deliver moving speeches, write best-selling books, and perfect their stage presence. A former actor and playwright who has performed at the renowned improv comedy theater Upright Citizens Brigade, she draws on years of stage experience to coach principals for their own spotlight. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Theatre from Hanover College in Indiana.