Mark grew up in Ohio in a family of engineers.

This was the beginning of Mark’s passion for business and, specifically, for the intersection between operations, finance, and government.

Mark worked for the United States Senate Majority Leader, in his first job after graduating from university, where he built relationships between US Senators and Fortune 500 CEOs. He advised them on a wide range of high-level strategic issues facing American CEO’s in a shifting economic landscape and guided them through the development of implementable policy solutions. In his role as a policy expert covering trade, tech, telecom, energy, and financial policy, solving these issues aligned with his passion for fostering a productive relationship between government and business to improve economic development for all. After helping to pass landmark legislation to help our economy recover from the 2008 recession, Mark wanted to implement these solutions through investing directly into innovative startups.

Impact investing bridges the gap between government policy and community action. Mark joined Calvert Special Equities to invest in socially responsible companies. He then continued his venture capital career at Second Century Ventures, investing in Proptech. Through SCV’s REACH Accelerator, he also helped startups in real estate and adjacent verticals scale. Mark moved to Hangzhou, China to work at Alibaba’s Ant Financial Group where he invested in fintech and e-commerce startups in emerging markets who were looking to use the Alibaba ecosystem in their home countries. His investments spanned Europe, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia.

While living in China, Mark also worked with Alibaba Group’s Tmall, Tmall Global, and Taobao marketplaces to build partnerships with U.S. startups looking to enter global markets. He has helped startups at every step: from supply chain, to government regulations, to marketing, to technology builds. He began focusing on how content creators are building the future of commerce after helping over 50 US startups enter the China market. He knows intimately the pain that content creators feel when building consumer products. Whether in China or the United States, from a poor or rich nation, young and old, Content Creators will play a vital role in building the startups of the future.