About

The Barker Wordworks is an expert consultancy focused on the strategic outcomes of executive communications, speechwriting, and thought leadership. It's also a one-man show, operated solely by Jeffrey M. Barker.

Barker (that's me!) has partnered with and written for dozens of executives, founders, philanthropists, celebrities, and elected officials across the worlds of business, politics, tech, and culture. He has supported principals as varied as the CEO of Starbucks, Amazon's CEO of Worldwide Operations, the founders of Zynga and Tinder, the Chief Business and Strategy Officer of a pharmaceutical research and manufacturing company, and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — over seven-plus years during his re-election, in the state administration, and after leaving office. He has ghostwritten for three candidates for U.S. President.

Barker's work has spanned industries ranging from health care to logistics to pop music to software development. He recently spent a year partnering with the President and CTO of autonomous vehicle company Cruise to guide it through crisis, restructuring, and ultimate acquisition by General Motors. He also spent more than two years — including during the COVID-19 pandemic — working alongside Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson, helping to communicate the company's renewed mission to frontline workers and investors. He helped define the corporate story for Beats by Dre (founders Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine) prior to its historic acquisition by Apple.

The Barker Wordworks takes a 360-degree, start-to-finish, soup-to-nuts, idea-to-execution approach to its work, producing all aspects of executive communications: speechwriting, internal communications, video scripts, messaging, corporate and executive narratives, strategic plans, content calendars, social media content, media training, presentation coaching, and anything else that its deliberately curated list of clients requires.

Barker's ghostwritten work has appeared in publications including The New York Times and Fortune, and on stages including Ivy League university commencements and The Aspen Institute conferences.

Prior to his career in executive communications, Barker was a news reporter for some of the largest newspapers on the West Coast — as well as some smaller ones.

The Barker Wordworks was founded in 2011 in Sacramento, California, has operated out of San Francisco and Munich, Germany, and is currently headquartered in Edmonds, Washington, just north of Seattle.