Success Built to Last

Co-Authors

Mark C. Thompson is a world-renowned authority and top speaker on Leadership, Driving Change and Innovation, Sales Growth, and Customer and Employee Engagement

Mark is an expert on executive leadership, business strategy, and innovation who has spent over 25 years leading teams and building companies from the ground up. He delivers actionable, valuable and practical advice for leaders at all levels of an organization.

Currently a highly sought after executive coach and venture investor, Forbes called Mark one of America’s Top Venture Investors with the ‘Midas Touch’. Mark was recently featured as one of the “World’s Top Executive Coaches” by the American Management Association and #1 Thought Leader on Innovation and Engagement. He was named one of the “Top 30 Communications Professionals for 2015” by Global Gurus. Mark advises top leaders in Fortune 500 and Global Fortune 1000 companies as well as the executive teams who are leading high growth startup companies in Silicon Valley today.

A New York Times bestselling author whose books include: ADMIRED: 21 Ways to Double Your Value; Now Build a Great Business; and Success Built to Last - Creating a Life that Matters, Mark is also an Innovation Leadership columnist for Forbes.com, Inc.com and FastCompany.com. His most recent bestseller ADMIRED is a primer on how the world’s “Most Admired Companies” achieve long-term success and growth as well as the qualities that are common to “Most Admired Leaders”.

Mark has worked side by side with three of the world’s most legendary disruptive innovators: Steve Jobs, Charles Schwab and Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson. He brings insight from decades of experience with these great leaders and research on the culture of companies and brands that achieve the highest levels of employee engagement, customer loyalty and continuous sales growth.

Mark was Charles Schwab’s former Chief of Staff and Chief Customer Experience Officer, and the Executive Producer of Schwab.com which today has assets over $2.4 Trillion. He is a co-founder of Sir Richard Branson’s Entrepreneurship Centres and an advisor to Virgin Unite Entrepreneurs.

Mark is a founding advisor of the Stanford Realtime Venture Design Lab, and is a visiting scholar at his alma mater, Stanford University. He has served as faculty at the World Economic Forum and World Business Forum, is a member of the Clinton Initiative, and an executive coach for TED Fellows.

A successful venture capitalist over the last two decades, Mark was as an early investor in companies like Facebook, Netflix and eSurance. He has been a Board Member for many well known technology, biotech and retail companies, including: Best Buy, Korn Ferry, and Interwoven (now owned by HP). He was the Chairman of the Board for Rioport, which popularized the MP3 player prior to the iPod. He is an investor in Cancer Genetics, a leader in DNA-based diagnostics for clinical management of cancer treatment.

Among Mark’s passions are music and Broadway. Mark serves as a founding Board of Directors member for Smule, the top music app company on iTunes which has over 125 million users worldwide. As a Broadway producer, Mark’s plays have earned five Tony Awards and a total of ten Tony nominations, including Peter and the StarCatcher with Disney, and StickFly with Alicia Keys.

Mark lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Manhattan with two extraordinary women – his wife Bonita and their daughter Vanessa.

Mark can be reached at: