WASHINGTON, DC—Joe Lockhart, former White House press secretary and senior adviser to President Bill Clinton, has joined the National Football League as executive vice president of communications. He will oversee league office initiatives for communications, social responsibility and community relations.

At the same time, Cynthia Hogan, who joined the NFL in September 2014 as senior vice president of government affairs, was promoted to executive vice president of public policy and government affairs. Hogan is the former deputy assistant to the president and counsel to Vice President Joe Biden.

Lockhart joins the NFL from The Glover Park Group, the strategic communications and government affairs firm he co-founded. Lockhart brings experience in media, as assignment editor at ABC News, deputy assignment manager for CNN in Washington, and foreign producer for Sky Television News; in government, having worked on the Clinton-Gore '96 , Dukakis-Bentsen '88, and Carter-Mondale ’80 campaigns; and in the corporate world, where he was vice president of global communications for Facebook.

He joins the NFL after a season of crises, ranging from Commissioner Roger Goodell’s handling of the “deflate-gate” scandal involving the New England Patriots to several incidents of domestic violence to the relocation of the St Louis Rams to Los Angeles. The League has been widely criticized for its handling of those issues.