• Michael Morosi, who most recently served as deputy chief of staff and communications director for Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), has joined the Investment Company Institute (ICI). He is a director on the industry group’s media relations team.
• Steptoe & Johnson has brought on Charles “Charley” Mills as a partner in its energy group and financial services practice. Prior to that, he worked at the law and lobby firm K&L Gates. Mills focuses on representing clients on regulatory enforcement, investigations and compliance issues before the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission, among other agencies. Before moving to the private sector, he served as a litigator and regulatory attorney in the Office of the General Counsel of the CFTC.
{mosads}• Amazon has hired Jill Shatzen Kerr away from Capitol Hill to serve as PR manager for public policy. Her first day is April 4. She most recently served as the communications director for the House Rules Committee under Chairman Pete Sessions (R-Texas) but has also worked in communications roles for the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade, and for former Reps. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) and Mary Bono (R-Calif.).
• Praxair, one of the largest industrial gas companies in the world, has named Neil Beup a director of government relations. He will lead state lobbying efforts for the Connecticut-based company. Before that, he served as a manager of government relations at United Technologies and has also worked at Carrier Corporation.
• Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA), an agricultural development organization, promoted Alan W. Pieper to chief operating officer, expanding his role for the organization’s operations and growth. He will also now manage its accounting, finance, communications, contracts, human resources and IT departments. Pieper joined CNFA in 2013 as the executive vice president of the operations and compliance department, and it nearly tripled in size under his leadership. Before CNFA, he spent more than 10 years serving as a Chief of Party in Kosovo and in the West Bank and Gaza, where his work included helping to create the Khaizaran Herb Farm, the first commercial Palestinian herb enterprise.