Robert Coon, managing partner at Impact Management Group in Little Rock, is a registered lobbyist who represents clients before the Arkansas General Assembly, executive branch and state agencies.
Coon is a native of Greenville, South Carolina, but has been a proud Arkansan since 2005, the year he joined IMG.
“I love Arkansas. I think the state has so much to offer, from outdoor activities such as mountain biking and trails to some really cool cities,” Coon said. “I personally love Little Rock, and I think it has great restaurants and lots of fun things to do. People are super nice, and Arkansas is a great place to be.”
At IMG, his career has been shaped by the development of strategic communications campaigns that include grassroots, media and digital outreach for the organization’s public policy and issue advocacy clients.
Coon graduated from Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina, with bachelor’s degrees in business administration and political science. After graduating from college, he found himself working in political affairs, an area that has helped him tremendously in his current role.
As Coon puts it, no two days look the same in his line of work, and he wears a lot of hats. In his current capacity, Coon has advised clients from several different sectors, including energy, health care, technology, telecommunications, financial services, labor and agriculture.
“Sometimes a normal day might involve something on the lobbying front. Some days, it might involve spearheading a polling project, and some days, it involves dealing with a political campaign. Most days, it deals with a little bit of all of those things,” Coon said.
Overall, IMG’s practices are divided underneath the overarching theme of strategic communication.
“Government relations is communicating client needs to members of the legislature and the executive branch. Polling is about how to communicate to large audiences, political campaigns and how to help candidates communicate,” Coon said.
When the legislature is not in session, a lot of Coon’s government relations responsibilities hit the forefront of his focus. This requires Coon to help clients in navigating things that are related to state government, more so than changing a law or preventing one from being changed.
Prior to joining IMG, Coon was an account manager at DCI Group, a full-service public affairs firm located in Washington, D.C.
“Early on in my career, I was blessed to work at a company in Washington, D.C., that was really on the forefront of public affairs, and I feel like I learned a tremendous amount from the people that were further along in their careers,” Coon said. “There were certainly people there that taught me the ropes, and for my first job out of college, there’s a lot to learn in transitioning into the workforce, especially because I consider the field that we work in to be pretty high stakes.”
Upon joining IMG, Coon said he was blessed to learn from the firm’s founding partners, Richard Bearden and Terry Benham. Bearden, Benham and Coon are all partners of IMG today.
“Lobbying requires understanding of policy and the understanding of the law, but it also requires relationships. I would say that Richard and Terry were really impactful in helping me grow relationships just from being able to see how they operated, from learning the process to becoming an effective lobbyist and developing that portion of my skills that I didn’t really have at the time,” Coon said.
Outside of work, Coon, his wife, Lindsay, and their children are members of the Midtown Campus of Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock, where they are all heavily involved. In the past, Coon was appointed to serve on various state and local boards and commissions, including the Little Rock Sister Cities Commission, which he was appointed to in 2011 by then-Mayor Mark Stodola. From 2014 to 2016, Coon was chairman of the commission and served as a liaison to Hanam, South Korea.
In 2016, then-Gov. Asa Hutchinson appointed Coon to the Governor’s Advisory Commission on National Service and Volunteerism, the state advisory board overseeing Arkansas-based national service programs. Additionally, Coon was also appointed to consecutive terms as a member of the Arkansas District Export Council, most recently in 2020 as an appointee of U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross.
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