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Mark's Biography
Mark Thompson is a world-renowned executive coach and an expert on innovation and customer engagement. He is an active angel investor in over 20 industries and author of the best selling business book, Success Built to Last.*
Former Chief Communications Officer for Charles Schwab & Co with five million client accounts with over $800 billion in client assets, he also served as Senior Vice President of the Schwab Client Experience. Later, as Executive Producer of Schwab.com, he created and hosted the Charles Schwab Leadership Series with dozens of great innovators, from Warren Buffett to Steve Jobs.
Mark is a rare speaker who has been a senior corporate executive, entrepreneur, business school coach, board member of a dozen Fortune 500 firms and a "venture investor with the 'Midas' touch," according to Forbes Magazine. Mark is a visiting Scholar at Stanford University and a Faculty member for the World Economic Forum, John F. Kennedy University, R.W. Baird Advanced Investment Advisor program at the University of Chicago and Tony Robbins Business Mastery Series.
Today, Mark delivers content-rich and inspiring keynotes to every type of audience, from CEOs and entrepreneurs to front-line employees, for corporations and trade associations.
Presentation Designed Specifically For You: Mark will personally connect with you and members of your team before the event to create a presentation made specifically for you. Mark also uses video interviews with famous leaders from around the world that are directly relevant to your organization. These two elements enable Mark to focus precisely on the economic and organizational drivers in your business, along with tangible tools that will inspire your audience to achieve their goals.
Customized Video Add-On: Recently at the Economic Development Forum in Leon, Mexico, Mark and his research team arrived in advance; they taped interviews with industry leaders to gather their ideas about how purpose and passion will create a business that is Built to Last. Click here to view an excerpt of the video he compiled onsite and shared in his presentation. Mark can do this for you making it the most relevant and newsworthy component of your event.
“Mark Thompson is the Napoleon Hill of the 21st Century. A best selling author, corporate advisor, economic wizard and leadership guru who's best selling books and keynotes inspire leaders.”
*Sequel to Jim Collins’ Built to Last.
Mark Thompson's Credentials:
- # 1 iPhone App – September 2009 – Smule, VC funded by Mark, has the top iPhone app with over a million downloads – T-Pain.
- #1 iTunes app - 2008 - the Ocarina - Mark is an investor and board member.
- Faculty Member - World Economic Forum and Tony Robbins Business Mastery Series.
- Visiting Scholar - Stanford University, JFK University and the Advanced Investment Counsel program at the University of Chicago/RW Baird.
- Board of Directors - Drucker Institute (Leader-to-Leader); former director of Best Buy, Korn Ferry, Interwoven, etc.
- Forbes Magazine's Top 100 - "venture investor with the 'Midas' touch." Mark served as an early advisor to Stanford's Real-time Venture Design Lab. He is an active angel investor.
- Chief Communications Officer - reporting to Charles R. Schwab.
- Senior Vice President, Customer Experience - for Schwab client accounts totaling $10 billion.
- Executive Producer - Schwab.com - at the time was one of the world's top 3 top e-commerce sites.
- Chairman of the Board - Integration, a Sequoia funded firm sold to Silicon Labs.
- Chairman - Rioport, popularized the mp3 player before the iPod.
- Chairman of VMAX - a marketing technology company that held the exclusive license for China with Micron Computer.
- Best Selling Author - Success Built to Last, the sequel to Built to Last by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras.
- Harvard Book Editor - Crisis as Opportunity and Weathering the Storm.
- Author and Host - Leaders of the New Century series, Charles Schwab CEO series, Women on Leadership, Getting it Done with Larry Bossidy, Blowing up the Factory with Jack Welch, Seven Secrets with Maya Angelou, Creating a Life that Matters on PBS and the Korn Ferry Intl and Ernst & Young Thought Leaders series.
- Leadership Development in Over 20 Industries - Mark's ability to draw out the relevant personal and business lessons in hundreds of interviews (from factory workers and shift managers to scientists, educators and Nobel laureates, CEOs, entrepreneurs and billionaires) are the foundation for the international bestseller Success Built to Last.
- Co-Author - John F. Kennedy University "Success Built to Last" seminars focused on strengthening business, sales, team, customer and personal relationships.
- Philanthropist - A graduate of Stanford, Mark has a passion for educational media. In 2008, he established the first digital recording and post-production studio for John F. Kennedy University. In 2009, he is creating the world's first CRM scholarship program at JFKU. He is a Benefactor of ParisTech, as well as the Leader to Leader (Drucker) Institute training programs and serves on the board of Heartland Circle and the Kitchen Sisters/National Public Radio programs.
“Mark Thompson's inspiring message is just what your leadership team needs! He customizes his keynotes to provide actionable ideas and insight for your organization.” - Susanne Lyons, Chief Marketing Officer, VISA
“Success Built to Last” delivers a meaningful, 'secret-formula' for success based on the lives of real people.- Sir Richard Branson, Virgin Brands
“Business leadership coach Mark Thompson, bestselling author of "Success Built to Last" at Stanford, launched a worldwide Thought Leadership Series starting with Ford Motor Company and the Leader to Leader Institute, along with Proctor & Gamble CEO AG Lafley, Jim Collins, Frances Hesselbein, Marshall Goldsmith and many more to come. These are wonderful!!!!..... Thank you Mark!!...so special to work together with you!”- Alan Mulally, Ford's CEO
Mark's Speaking Requirements
Mark travels business class within the US and around the world. He prefers to customize his presentations for every client, so he requires a teleconference with the client well in advance of the event for planning and content development purposes. In addition, we try to fly him into the location the night before the event and he prefers to run the A/V at that time to assure all technical issues are resolved the night before. He flies with a back-up laptop.
A/V
Mark uses an Apple PC for his presentation with audio and video clips.
- Please have a mini-stereo hookup and video feed so he can plug in his Apple. He will bring his own VGA adapter.
- Provide a wireless lavalier or headset AND a wireless microphone for his audience interactions.
- His presentation requires a screen to project video and speakers for audio. He does not use a podium, but it's okay if you have one.
- His laptop can be on the stage or anywhere in the room, since he brings his own wireless clicker.
- We ask that we can meet an AV technician the night before the event to test sound levels and video quality.
- We require that a technician remain in the room during Mark's program.
- We don't use Powerpoint - we use Apple's Keynote software - which seems better able to handle rich audio and video. We happily use Windows PCs in our office.
Copies of Presentation
We are happy to provide a copy of the presentation as a PDF after the program. We work with your team directly to customize each of our programs so they are on target with your audience by:
- Creating Video Interviews with managers and/or customers/users of your service - we use these interviews where appropriate during the presentation.
- Conducting Surveys of participants in your event addressing key issues facing your field or industry.
Video Taping
Videotaping the presentation: Our policy is anyone can tape the presentation FREE as long as:
- A good quality digital camera is operated by someone who can follow the speaker's movements.
- The lavalier microphone can be fed into the camera so the audio quality is good.
- A copy of the digital video is provided to the speaker, and copyright is retained by the speaker.
- Your copies are used internally and not provided to the public.
- Have a second camera pointed at the audience which does not need to be connected to the audio.
