Grassroots Strategies™
We are a strategy consulting firm whose niche is crafting pragmatic and sustainable alliances that harness long-term relationships with multicultural communities.
We are a company built on life experiences, on humanity.
Because of a proven track record in strategic communications for the executive branch of New York City politics and its diverse communities served, we have close relationships at political, social, and media levels founded on trust from the ground up in neighborhoods in which we live and work.
As strategists, we are ‘Glocal’ – an intersection between global and local – because we know that the impetus is from the bottom up.
José Bayona
Founder & CEO
José Bayona is the founder of Grassroots Strategies™, bilingual communication professional with ample experience in government and community affairs, communications, and the print, digital, and broadcast media industries.
Currently, he is a Senior Adviser for mayor-elect Eric Adams and a member of the Communications, Immigration, Civic Engagement, and Equity Transition committees, and a member of the Inauguration Committee. Prior to founding Grassroots Strategies, he served as spokesperson for Mayor Bill de Blasio and held the title of Director of Community and Ethnic Media and Deputy Press Secretary at the Mayor’s Office where he managed communications for 20 City agencies, including the Administration for Children’s Services, Department of Youth & Community Development, NYC 2020 Census Office, Mayor’s Office of Community Affairs, Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, Mayor’s Office of International Affairs, Board of Elections, Democracy NYC, Civic Engagement Commission, Charter Revision Commission, NYC Department of Veteran Services.
At City Hall, Bayona also supervised the implementation of Executive Order 47, which requires City agencies to spend at least half of their annual print and digital advertising budgets on community and ethnic media, and managed the City’s community and ethnic media directory for advertising purposes, which includes more than 350 media outlets citywide.
During the Eric Adams 2021 mayoral primary campaign, Bayona crafted the proposal for the new Mayor’s Office of Ethnic and Community Media (MOECM), the first mayor’s office in the country dedicated to strengthening the relationship between city government and ethnic and community media outlets. In June 2021, the City Council overwhelmingly approved the legislation for the MOECM sponsored by Mayor-elect Eric Adams, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, and Council Members Ydanis Rodríguez and Oswald Feliz.
Bayona spent most of his journalism years at the New York Daily News where he started as a community reporter for the Spanish weekly Hora Hispana. Later, he was a writer for NY1 Noticias and Metro Editor for El Diario before getting into City government as deputy press secretary for the Department of Transportation, and press secretary for the Administration for Children’s Services. He has also worked with non-profit organizations in creating their communications and content strategy, and as an adjunct professor for Hofstra University and CUNY’s Baruch College.
A native of Colombia with Venezuelan roots, Bayona holds an M.A. in Journalism from the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism – Urban and Interactive reporting concentrations – and graduated Cum Laude from the CUNY Baccalaureate Program in Journalism and Political Science from Baruch College. He also has years of experience working in theater and film from when he lived in Venezuela.
Since his arrival in the United States 25 years ago looking for a better future, Bayona has lived in Queens, the most diverse place on earth, where he lives with his teenage son and enjoys the gastronomic offer from many cultures (cooking is one of his passions!) and the unmatched taste of an Argentinian Malbec, his favorite red wine.
