Founder & CEO
Eddie Kaufholz The person on the work.
Eddie has spent twenty years where the communication had to be right. Alongside consulting and strategy work, he built a career in podcasting that includes hosting The New Activist, recurring appearances on That Sounds Fun with Annie F. Downs, and co-hosting shows that together have crossed millions of downloads. He spent seven years early in his career at International Justice Mission and later led strategic communications at Bread for the World.
He also spent years coaching the leaders behind the work: writing speeches, preparing executives for high-stakes stages, and sitting across from senior communicators who knew what they wanted to say but needed someone to help them say it well. Eddie holds a master's degree in mental health counseling, and that training shows up in how he listens, how he asks questions, and how he helps people find a voice that actually sounds like them.
The fun part is sitting across from someone who has something important to say, and helping them get there.
After years of freelancing alongside that organizational work, he kept seeing the same gap. Large agencies had infrastructure but rarely put their best people on the actual work. Smaller shops had energy but not always the depth. Eddie founded PILLAR to close that gap. The idea was not to sell the same work at a lower price. It was to build something fundamentally more scalable and efficient: senior teams assembled around each engagement, with that efficiency passed back to the client in real dollars. PILLAR's work spans institutions, brands, and the leaders who represent them.
If the stakes are real and the work needs to match them, this is the right place.
What Eddie Brings
Twenty years in rooms where the communication had to be right.
Executive & Leadership Coaching
The person behind the person. Eddie has spent years coaching C-suite leaders, keynote speakers, and senior communicators through high-stakes presentations, internal speeches, and moments where clarity and confidence both need to show up. The approach is built on counseling instincts as much as communications strategy.
Strategy Before Creative
Every engagement starts upstream. Before a logo, a campaign, or a deck, Eddie works to understand what is actually true, what audiences need to believe, and what has to change. The creative follows from that. Not the other way around.
High-Stakes Communications
Twenty years of working where the communication has to be right. Human rights, institutional reinvention, executive leadership, corporate culture, higher education, advocacy. That depth shapes how PILLAR approaches every engagement.
Senior Attention on Every Project
PILLAR does not hand work off after the kickoff call. Eddie stays in it. He writes, edits, coaches, and sits in the strategy sessions. Clients get the person they hired, not a proxy.
How PILLAR works
A modern, distributed studio.
Built around the work, not the account.Most agencies are built around accounts. PILLAR is built around work. Senior strategists, designers, writers, and producers, assembled around the engagement and released when the work is done. The result is a tighter relationship, faster decisions, and work that reflects exactly what was agreed to.
PILLAR gives you agency-level work and you only pay for what you are actually getting.
Bonus Points
Serves on the boards of Mended and Breadcoin, two organizations at the intersection of dignity, justice, and economic empowerment.
Honored with distinctions from The Webby Awards and The New York Festivals Radio Awards. All of those trophies were lost in a move, which still makes Eddie a little sad.
Lives in Arlington, Virginia, with his family and two cats named Waffles and Mrs. Landingham. To know Eddie is to know that West Wing references are not optional. They are load-bearing.
The work matters. Let's make sure it shows.
Whether you're scoping a project or exploring the fit, start here.
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