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Mark C. Thompson - Biography
Mark C. Thompson is CEO and cofounder of Virgin Unite Mentors, Sir Richard Branson's network for executive coaching and entrepreneurial innovation. A leadership coach, bestselling author, venture capitalist and Tony-nominated Broadway producer, Mark brings real-time solutions to today's leadership challenges.
- He is Charles Schwab's former Chief of Staff, Chief Customer Experience Officer, Chief Communications Officer and cofounder of the Schwab Foundation. He also served as Executive Producer of Schwab.com, with assets of $1.4 trillion. Forbes Magazine called Mark one of America's top investors with the 'Midas' touch.
- He served on the Board of Directors of Best Buy, Korn Ferry International, and Interwoven (now owned by HP). He was Chairman of Rioport, which popularized the MP3 player prior to iTunes, and was Chairman of Integration, which was acquired by Silicon Labs. He is a Founding Patron of Richard Branson's Entrepreneurship Centre, and is Program Chairman for the Board of Governors of the Hesselbein Leadership Institute and the John F. Kennedy Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership
- 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. He is a member of the Clinton Initiative and an Executive Coach for TED.
- Mark is an investor in entertainment software and health care companies. He was founding Board member of Smule, which is Google and Apple's top music applications company for the hit TV series Glee, with over 20 million monthly active users. He is an investor in Cancer Genetics and CNS Response.
- Among his passions is Broadway. As a producer, Mark's plays have earned five Tony awards and ten nominations, including Peter and the StarCatcher with Disney, and StickFly with Alicia Keys. He is a partner in the Broadway Times Square Theatre, which will be converted into a 4-dimensional Broadway attraction.
- He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and Manhattan with two extraordinary women, his wife Bonita and daughter Vanessa.
2013 Keynotes
LEADER IN YOUR BUSINESS
Most Admired Company - Boost Employee Engagement
How can your team become the 'Most Admired' in your industry? Mark shares his new study (with Stanford and Northwestern researchers) revealing what Highly Engaged Employees admire and value in companies, teams and leaders.- What 8 Leadership Traits engage top performers most?
- What 21 tools will double the value you provide customers?
- How can you become the MVP of your team?
Make Change Happen - Success Built to Last
How do you convince your team not only to embrace change, but actually lead the transformation now - with urgency? In this exciting keynote and seminar, Mark shares insights and video from world-class companies that at first struggled with change and then reinvented their business.- What 3 factors galvanize change in every person?
- How do world-class teams generate unstoppable growth?
- What 5 Customer Service strategies are Built to Last?
- How do you grow leaders from Good to Great - Level 1 to 5 - what are the steps necessary for developing teams?
Build a Great Business - Boost Sales & Profit Growth
In this high-impact keynote, Mark reveals the 3 critical drivers of influence for every great business and high performance leaders.- 5 Mistakes That Cut Sales in Half.
- Helping clients understand the cost of ignoring your offer.
- What Does Your Market Crave?
- Five Tools To Double Sales: Positioning-Pain-Promise-Proof-Planning.
Mark's Technology Requirements
Mark 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 ensure all technical issues are resolved the night before the event. He flies with a back-up laptop.
A/V
- Mark uses an Apple laptop for his presentation with audio and video clips.
- Please have a mini-stereo hookup and video feed so he can plug in his Apple computer. He will bring his own VGA adapter.
- Provide a wireless lavalier or headset AND a wireless microphone for 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 remote.
- 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
Our policy is to allow anyone at our client events to tape the presentation 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.
- A second camera is available and pointed at the audience (the second camera does not need to be connected to the audio).
Endorsements
Michael Wege, Senior Vice President, Chief Commercial Officer, The Hershey Company (0:23)
Marty Crane, SVP, Spirits Sales - Pernod Ricard USA (0:20)
Jeff Wiemelt, President, Sundyne (0:13)
Chris Conway, Account Director, Equinix (0:16)
Jorge Suarez, Director Strategic Planning & HR, Ocean Mist Distributors, Inc. (0:29)
John Celli, President, Loral Space Systems (0:16)
Chris Reynolds, CEO Investment Planning Counsel (0:14)
Sean Jackson, CEO Credit Union Association (0:20)
Jan Collier, AT&T University, Leading with Distinction Exec Ed Program (0:12)
Joann Burns, Executive Vice President, Marketing, Research and New Media 20th Television and MyNetworkTV (0:24)
Pat Patrick, President, Lodi Chamber of Commerce (0:26)
Georges Tawil, Chief Marketing Director, Fix Auto - Quebec (0:51)
Wendy Lisogar-Cocchia - Chair, Vancouver Board of Trade; CEO, Century Plaza Hotel and Absolute Spa Group (0:38)
Carol Farron - Lodi Chamber of Commerce (0:44)
Chyai Mulberg, Conference Producer, Richmond Events (0:22)
Dr. Larry Barton, equitable AXA and CEO of American College (00:42)
Bob Thompson, Executive Vice President, Rite Aid (00:33)
Paul Cunningham, President & CEO of WGI Westman Group, Inc. (00:33)
Tracy Christman, Vice President of Vendor Alliance, Budget Blinds (0:21)
Doug Hinzie, Vice President of the Americas for Chevron Lubricants (0:29)
Eileen Forrest, Head of Sales Support, equitable Axa Advisors (0:18)
Todd Jackson, COO, Budget Blinds (0:18)
CEO Hugo Van Nispen and Event Director Elizabeth Durney at America's Energy Conference (02:45)
Daryl Cromer, Vice President PC Innovation Lab; Principal Technologist & Distinguished Engineer, ThinkPad - Lenovo (00:47)
Tom Pierson, Chairman - Association of Chambers of Commerce (00:23)
Sean Skelly, General Manager - EFI (00:45)
Gene Longobardi - Online Trading Academy Franchisees (00:40)
Greg Adams, Chairman 2011, HFMA (00:50)
Anand Sharma - TBM Lean Global Summit (00:45)
Debora Kuchka-Craig, Corporate Vice President, Managed Care, MedStar Health (00:54)
Richard McIntyre - DSW Securities and Financial Services (00:54)
Chad Hallock, CEO, Budget Blinds (0:15)
Frank Sablone, President - TLMI (00:32)
Tom Galati - Online Trading Academy Sales Training (00:35)
Joe Roddy - Hospital Corporation of America/Parallon Business Solutions (01:11)
Mark Taub - President, Palm Bay, America's largest importer of Italian wines (03:00)
Melissa Navarro - Trade Association & Economic Conference, Mexico (01:21)
Unilever Brazil & So. Africa (00:40)
John O'Donnell - Online Trading Academy (00:15)
Books by Mark Thompson
