Business Forward

Business Forward is a new group formed to build business support for policies that promote America's economic competitiveness with particular emphasis on examining reforms for health care, education and energy and climate change policy.

Founding members include Qualcomm, Microsoft, Time Warner, Ford, IBM, Visa, AT&T, Hilton, HP, Pfizer, and Lockheed Martin. Facebook and Marc Ecko's Sweat Equity Enterprises are also initial members.

The organization does not speak for business, but rather it is structured as a platform to allow business leaders to speak for themselves on a wide variety of issues. It also makes use of many new media tools which got many business leaders engaged for the first time in the 2008 campaign.

According to the National Journal, it will be led by political operative Jim Doyle; former Viacom lobbyist David Sutphen, whose sister is Obama's deputy chief of staff; former Obama media consultant Erik Smith; former Obama campaign staffer Julie Andreeff Jensen; and Hilary Rosen, former head of the Recording Industry Association of America.

Business Forward's founding members will pay up to $50,000 per year for a membership, while smaller firms will pay $1,500 in annual dues.

One organizer rejected the notion that the group is the Democrats' answer to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business. It won't compete with progressive think tanks like the Center for American Progress or MoveOn.org, the organizer said." ,