Mark Penn

Mark Penn is the founder, Chairman, and CEO of Stagwell Inc., a modern marketing services network he built as a data-driven challenger to legacy holding companies like WPP, Omnicom, and Publicis. Penn took Stagwell public in 2021 via a SPAC merger with MDC Partners, creating a publicly traded entity with capabilities spanning performance marketing, digital media, data analytics, and creative services. His distinctive approach applies methodologies honed in political campaigns—micro-targeting, message optimization, and real-time polling—to brand marketing and digital transformation, making Stagwell one of the more technologically ambitious entrants in the competitive marketing services landscape. Penn's path to AdTech leadership runs through an unusually diverse career. He served as Chief Strategy Officer at Microsoft from 2012 to 2018, where he oversaw corporate strategy and had direct involvement with Microsoft Advertising, giving him rare executive-level exposure to large-scale digital advertising platforms, data infrastructure, and technology product development. Before Microsoft, he was CEO of Burson-Marsteller, one of the world's largest PR firms, and founded Penn Schoen Berland (PSB), a market research and polling firm that pioneered data-driven political and corporate strategy. His political credentials—chief strategist for Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election and Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign—cemented his reputation as a data and messaging innovator. Under Penn's leadership, Stagwell has pursued an aggressive acquisition strategy to assemble a full-service digital marketing stack, acquiring companies in areas including performance media, digital transformation consulting, and marketing technology. Penn is a vocal advocate for the idea that marketing holding companies must evolve into technology companies, and he has positioned Stagwell's proprietary data and technology platform, the Stagwell Marketing Cloud, as a differentiator against incumbents. His ability to synthesize political strategy, data science, and corporate communications into a coherent marketing services model has made him one of the more distinctive voices in the AdTech and marketing technology conversation.

• B.A., Harvard University
• J.D., Harvard Law School

• Founded Stagwell and took it public via SPAC merger with MDC Partners in 2021, creating a publicly traded marketing network valued at over $4 billion
• Served as Chief Strategy Officer at Microsoft, overseeing Microsoft Advertising and corporate strategy for one of the world's largest technology companies
• Founded Penn Schoen Berland, a pioneering data and polling firm that applied quantitative research to political and corporate strategy
• Served as chief strategist for Bill Clinton's successful 1996 presidential re-election campaign
• Launched the Stagwell Marketing Cloud as a proprietary technology platform to differentiate Stagwell from legacy holding companies

• Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind Tomorrow's Big Changes (2007, co-authored with E. Kinney Zalesne)
• Microtrends Squared: The New Small Forces Driving the Big Disruptions Today (2018)