Justin Ángel Knighten

Justin Ángel Knighten is a nationally recognized communications executive and storyteller who has led communications strategy at the highest levels of government, business, and public life. Known for building and leading world-class teams, he brings deep expertise in crisis communications, executive positioning, brand strategy, and stakeholder engagement — with a track record of shaping reputations, driving change, and moving communities and institutions forward on the issues that matter most.

Knighten believes that effective communication is the connective tissue of change. In an increasingly information-rich and complex environment, communications is a dominating and leading force in how organizations reach audiences, build and maintain trust, manage reputions, shift behavior, and avoid pitfalls. Advancing a sustainable future requires the ability to deliver messaging that resonates, build coalitions, bridge partisan divides, engage communities authentically, and translate complex ideas into action across sectors and levels of government. That is the expertise he brings to the Alliance.

From 2021 to 2025, Knighten served as Associate Administrator for External Affairs at FEMA, leading all communications, public engagement, intergovernmental and Tribal affairs, and external partnerships during the nation's most complex emergencies — including historic hurricanes, wildfires, and the COVID-19 response. Before FEMA, he served in the Newsom Administration where he helped design and co-chair Listos California, a groundbreaking $50 million disaster preparedness initiative that transformed how government reaches and equips historically vulnerable communities for climate-driven disasters.

Across his private sector career, Knighten advises corporate, philanthropic, media company, and nonprofit leaders on high-stakes communications challenges. He has led successful campaigns spanning clean energy, renewable energy, sustainability, biotechnology, health care, education, tourism, and entertainment. He launched his career in environmental policy at the California Environmental Protection Agency, contributing to the implementation of AB 32 — the nation's first comprehensive climate law.

He's co-founder of a national public affairs firm and an advisor to a Los Angeles-based media and communications firm. In 2024, the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) named Knighten its national Public Relations Professional of the Year. PRWeek recognized him in 2021 as a "40 Under 40" innovator reshaping the communications field.

He also serves on the National Advisory Council of the Climate Risk Lab at the University of Washington's Foster School of Business and is a former Pritzker Fellow at the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics. A California native, proud grandson of Mexican immigrants, and a graduate of California State University, Sacramento, he is based in Washington, DC.