ELITE Strategic Services
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Part Intelligence Analyst, Part Research Geek, Part Advocacy Strategist, Part Business Planner
ELITE Strategic Services, L.L.C., is a consulting firm that provides strategic and advisory services to help clients anticipate, navigate, and mitigate government-imposed hurdles, identify and unlock business opportunities, and position themselves for business growth in regulated commercial sectors. For several clients, ELITE is engaged in advocacy and thought leadership.
James Edwards, ELITE's founder and CEO, has consulted for 25 years to corporate, association, and nonprofit clients, with significant experience in health care, technology, and innovation policy. As an entrepreneur, Edwards cofounded a public affairs firm and a health care coalition before starting ELITE. Edwards has founded, led, advised, or mentored more than 60 corporations, trade groups, startups, and nonprofits. He has experience with negotiation, strategic planning, budgeting and financial management, due diligence, marketing, employee benefits, property searches, resolving sensitive personnel matters, and dispute resolution, as well as fundraising and litigation support. He has appeared on CBS News, CNN, Fox News, National Public Radio, and other media, podcasts, and events.
Having served members of both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, Edwards has also held leadership roles in the private sector, health care, and coalitions, provided investment analysts and corporate executives with assessments of and outlooks on public policy developments, taught college, and been a speechwriter and campaign advisor. A seasoned strategist, Edwards has substantive expertise in health policy, intellectual property, technology, transportation, communications, small business issues, and other subject matter. He earned a doctorate in communications at the University of Tennessee and bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Georgia.
Under Edwards's leadership, ELITE has become a client-oriented service provider that leverages its assets in business, med tech, public policy, and strategic communications. The firm can assess clients’ regulatory risks — now and over the horizon — and assist clients in developing strategies to mitigate those risks and capitalize on new opportunities. ELITE helps clients minimize risk and maximize opportunity in the current and evolving economic, regulatory, and political environment.
ELITE has alliances with specialists who round out the team. These include regulatory, business, legal, and technological specialists.
“I have worked with Jim Edwards on patent and IP-related policy matters for [more than 10] years, and have found him to bring a number of strengths to the table. Jim’s a thought leader on these issues. . . . Jim Edwards has tangibly advanced the interests of U.S. patent owners through his excellent, dedicated efforts.”
– Qualcomm Inc.
"Jim Edwards knows health policy, the health care industry, and the Washington process, and he is strategically astute." — American Clinical Laboratory Assn.