I was raised by primitives on Venice Beach in the 1970s, hippies who never really considered the fact that my first name, Marco, and my last, name, Greenberg, didn’t really match, or that children were traditionally sent to school, not on long cross-country trips or sailing expeditions in Mexico. After graduating from UCLA in 1986, I was eager to move back east for a more conventional, a more civilized life.
Convinced that a Masters at the School of International Affairs at Columbia University would prepare me for a career in public service, I was all set to parlay my newly minted degree, and an internship at the CBS News foreign desk and a stint on Capitol Hill, into my first real job. After a rocky and unorthodox childhood, I was finally going to put real distance between my new life ahead and my primitive past.
After a press officer gig at the United Nations, I joined Burson-Marsteller, at the time the world’s leading public relations agency, as an account executive. I soon moved to Tel Aviv, tapped for a position with the local branch of the global advertising giant BBDO. Returning to New York, I felt my primitive side calling once again, and started my own company, NYPR. There, it was my good fortune to help launch my friend Danny Lewin’s start-up, Akamai Technologies, which became one of the most successful ventures of Internet 1.0, an S&P 500 company that facilitates a very large percentage of all traffic online today.
After starting another company, a video production outfit that I eventually sold to a former employee, I returned to Burson-Marsteller as a Managing Director. There, working with major companies around the world and overseeing teams of employees, I hoped to reach the career pinnacle anyone in my profession could only dream of. Yet, very much primitive, I was restless: I was desperate to once again march to my own drum. For me that means, maintaining my independence rather than “scope and scale,” making a positive impact rather than worshipping the almighty dollar, and having fun at work rather than seeing it as drudgery.
Together with a business partner, I started Thunder11, a strategic communications shop designed to address the rapidly changing media landscape and focused on helping clients tell impactful stories on diverse digital and real-world platforms. In less than a decade, we’ve attracted large-scale clients including AT&T, Council on Foreign Relations, GlaxoSmithKline, Northwell Health, The Ohio State University, WeWork, West Virginia University etc. — as well as many startups backed by members of the Forbes List and venture capital firms like Battery Ventures and Spark Capital. We act as advisors, confidantes and do’ers to CEOs and other C-Level executives on a myriad of their communications needs.
In addition to my life running an agency, I’ve taught marketing at NYU and entreprenuership and then PR at Fordham, and contribute to a wide array of national publications, including Business Insider, Entrepreneur, Goodmen Project, NY Daily News, Tablet Magazine, Thrive Global etc. Primitive is my first book.
I have one wife, three kids, two dogs, two cats (all rescues) and split my time between Great Barrington, Mass and NYC.
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