A10 Associates closes up lobbying shop

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A10 Associates, which billed itself as the “largest woman-owned bipartisan public affairs firm,” was riding high.

An affiliate of financial media giant Bloomberg called them a “top-performing” lobbying firm in its report for 2024, released earlier this year. The firm came in at No. 7 on the Boston Business Journal’s Fast 50, a list of the fastest-growing private companies in Massachusetts.

But in July, the Washington-focused firm shut down. Its website now features a “Thank you” note and a contact form, with a message that reads, “We have decided to retire this business to focus on our families and other special projects.”

From the outside, it looked like an abrupt shutdown. According to Jessica Beeson Tocco, the CEO until about a month ago, it was in the works for some time ago.

Building the business was “one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life,” and it took a toll on her family, particularly when paired with a cancer fight during the Covid pandemic, Beeson Tocco said in a phone interview Tuesday.

Along with its Malden headquarters, the firm also had offices in D.C., Miami, East Falmouth, and Indianapolis. In its bid for a Fast 50 listing, the firm claimed 2024 revenue hit $10 million, up from $2.5 million in 2021. Its client roster included a member of the Bacardi family, a crypto exchange, the private Cambridge College and transportation and energy-focused companies.

The shutdown came months after they had put out job postings, saying they were looking to hire a controller and a junior lobbyist. In April, they had hired a director of strategic communications and operations from the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

When the firm closed – she didn’t sell it, she noted – Beeson Tocco posted on LinkedIn a photo of herself standing on a balcony with her two children, ages 9 and 12, with the Washington Monument in the distance. “Right now my Number 1 focus is my kids and my marriage,” said Beeson Tocco, who is married to developer John Tocco, the son of lobbying legend and former Massport CEO Steve Tocco.

An Indiana native with ties to Mike Pence and a donor to Donald Trump’s 2025 inauguration fund, she previously worked for Rasky Partners. She left that shop in 2018 to relaunch and scale up A10 Associates, which had previously been a small firm she ran solo.

But she added that since then the lobbying landscape had shifted. “This was really good timing for me to really bring in and align different national partners for the book of business and let them take the lead, because the industry is changing and developing,” she said. “What I mean by that is our growth was very aligned with the flow of federal funding.”

She is now in the process of helping transition clients and her former employees, who signed employment and severance contracts that don’t allow them to talk to reporters. She said she has offers and opportunities for herself and plans an announcement “down the road.”

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