Around 1050 BCE, Phoenician traders developed an alphabet of 22 characters. It wasn’t the first writing system — but it was the one that changed everything.

What made it different wasn’t complexity. It was the opposite: a lean, adaptable framework that could travel, evolve, and serve any purpose across any culture. Every major alphabet in use today — Latin, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Cyrillic — traces its lineage directly to those 22 characters. Three thousand years of technological transformation, and the foundation held.

We’re living through another inflection point. Artificial intelligence is reshaping how information is created, distributed, and received — generating more content, faster, than at any point in human history. In that environment, volume is cheap. What’s scarce is judgment: knowing what to say, to whom, and why it matters.

That’s what we do.

22 Characters is built on the belief that the most powerful communications isn’t the loudest or the most — it’s the kind that endures. The right message, in the right hands, delivered with clarity and purpose, outlasts every technological shift.

It always has.

Xochitl Hinojosa

Founding Partner

Xochitl Hinojosa brings unmatched experience at the intersection of politics, law, and public communications. As a senior communications official at the U.S. Department of Justice, she navigated some of the most complex and high-profile institutional communications challenges in the federal government — developing a rare fluency in legal, policy, and political messaging that few communicators can match. She also served as Communications Director at the Democratic National Committee and is a veteran of multiple high-profile campaigns, bringing strategic clarity, cultural fluency, and deep media credibility to every engagement.

Josh Schwerin

Founding Partner

Josh Schwerin is one of the most experienced political and crisis communications professionals in the country. He served as National Spokesperson for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, Senior Strategist and Communications Director at Priorities USA, National Press Secretary at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and has counseled clients through some of the most consequential communications challenges in recent American political life. His instincts for message, media, and moment are without peer.