NEW YORK, September 22, 2015 – Mark Hass today joined Teneo Digital as a Senior Advisor. He is the founding partner of Peconic First, a New York-based venture capital and advisory firm working with early-stage, technology-driven marketing and media companies whose business models are built on social platforms, data analytics or augmented reality.
Prior to launching Peconic in September 2014, he was President and CEO of Edelman U.S. He was a leader of many of the firm’s digital business innovations, introducing several new concepts that drove agency growth and profitability. He also led the firm’s U.S. acquisition and investment strategy, which was focused on early-stage, technology-driven marketing companies. Additionally, he was President until May 2012 of Edelman China, where he oversaw two PR brands and more than 200 employees. He provided senior counsel to a broad range of Edelman clients in China and the U.S., including Volkswagen, Kellogg’s, Fannie Mae, ADM, Starbucks, Oracle, Hewlett- Packard, Hilton and Wrigley.
Mr. Hass joined Edelman after his independent firm, MH Group Communications, was acquired and integrated into Edelman Digital. MH Group specialized in integrating traditional C-Suite corporate communications services with social programming and other digital tools. He worked closely with key clients, including United Airlines during its merger with Continental Airlines, to help them develop corporate communications structures suitable for modern media environments.
Before launching MH Group, he was the global CEO of MS&L Worldwide, a leading communications firm in the Publicis Groupe, with offices and specialized consultancies in 27 countries. He was responsible for all aspects of the firm’s performance and acted as a senior counselor to many of the world’s most prestigious organizations and companies, including Procter & Gamble and General Motors. He also expanded the agency’s network through organic investment and acquisition, adding 25 offices in the Nordics, France, China, Japan and India.
He joined MS&L in 2002, when his first independent digital agency, Hass Associates, was acquired by and merged into MS&L. As the founder and CEO of Hass Associates which grew to be Michigan’s largest digital communications firm in seven years, he was best known for unique work integrating online strategies into the communications activities of global companies. Among the agency’s accomplishments were the development of one of the nation’s first online newsrooms for Chrysler Corp. and the GM Fast Lane blog, which pioneered the use of blogging strategies by senior corporate executives.
Prior to entering the strategic communications industry, Mr. Hass worked as a reporter and editor for 16 years at various newspapers, including as assistant managing editor at The Detroit News, where his staff won the Pulitzer Prize for reporting about government corruption.
He is currently a board member of Segmanta, an early-stage Israeli technology firm specializing in market research, and an advisory board member of Disconnect, a San Francisco-based provider of online privacy tools for consumers He has also written chapters in two important marketing textbooks: Reputation Management, 3rd Edition (“Integrated Communications in an era of Social Media”) and The Handbook of Strategic Public Relations and Integrated Communications (Social Media and Public Relations in China) He lives in New York.