Mark J. Penn (born January 15, 1954) is an American businessman, pollster, political strategist, and author.
Penn is chairman and chief executive officer of Stagwell, a marketing group. He was formerly chief strategy officer of Microsoft Corporation and chief executive officer of Burson-Marsteller. Penn is the author of the books Microtrends (2007) and Microtrends Squared (2018), the former of which Ezra Klein, writing for In These Times, described as "epically awful," remarking that "if [Penn] is the pinnacle of his profession, then the profession uses numbers as a ruse – a superficial empiricism that obscures garden-variety hackery."
Together with Douglas Schoen, he was co-founder of the polling firm PSB Research, whose clients included President Bill Clinton, British prime minister Tony Blair, and Bill Gates. Penn was a chief strategist and pollster in the Hillary Clinton 2008 presidential campaign. Penn later became a defender of Donald Trump, opposing his impeachment, reportedly consulting on his 2020 presidential campaign (which Penn denies), and alleging a "deep state" conspiracy against him.
Support of Israel and Zionism Public relations for the Israeli government In September 2025, internal strategy documents from Penn's polling and marketing firm, Stagwell Global, were leaked to the investigative outlet Drop Site News. The documents revealed that the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs had commissioned Stagwell to rehabilitate Israel's global image amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza. The leaked reports indicated that the firm conducted extensive focus groups and tested campaign messages designed to shift international narratives by associating the conflict with Islamic extremism and terrorism.
The revelation prompted significant media backlash regarding the ethics of public relations in wartime. In The Guardian, columnist Arwa Mahdawi strongly condemned the firm's work, writing that marketing companies were helping to "rebrand the genocide in Gaza." Reviewing the leaked presentation—which suggested there was "room for growth" in Israel's international standing—Mahdawi noted: "Per Drop Site, the report from Penn’s firm apparently assessed that Israel has a good chance of making people forget about that nasty little genocide business if they stoke fear of 'Radical Islam' and 'Jihadism'." She heavily criticized the campaign's focus on terrorism messaging, writing, "If you make people scared that babies are terrorists then they won’t mind when you murder them, basically." Concluding her assessment of the industry's role in the conflict, Mahdawi stated, "It is looking far more likely that one day a lot of money will have been spent to rebrand this."
Penn has had a long-standing involvement in Israeli politics and public advocacy, beginning in 1981 when he worked on the re-election campaign of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Media profiles and regional reporting have noted his family's long-term involvement in pro-Israel advocacy organizations, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
Following the October 7 attacks and the start of the Israel–Hamas war, Penn publicly defended Israel's military campaign, arguing in commentary pieces and conferences that Israel had the right and obligation to eliminate Hamas. As co-director of the Harvard CAPS / Harris Poll, Penn frequently analyzed shifts in American public sentiment regarding the conflict, highlighting broad support among older voters while expressing concern over declining support and generational division among younger demographics. Through Stagwell and its affiliated agencies, Penn has also overseen messaging and market-research initiatives in coordination with Israeli public-diplomacy bodies, which later led to leaks and media scrutiny.
Targeted Communications Global and Israeli government contracts According to public filings under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) reported by Responsible Statecraft, Targeted Communications Global—a public affairs firm and affiliate of Stagwell subsidiary Targeted Victory—was retained on a $9.9 million contract by the Israeli government (subcontracted via Havas) to manage digital media campaigns and public outreach across the United States. The contract, noted as one of the most lucrative active foreign lobbying operations in the U.S., involved purchasing approximately $2 million in advertisements on X and placements in outlets such as Breitbart News and The Daily Caller, as well as booking pro-Israel commentary across major television networks. The reporting noted that other Stagwell-owned agencies, including SKDK, had also engaged in digital messaging contracts for Israeli public diplomacy. Commenting on shifts in U.S. opinion, Penn, as Stagwell CEO, attributed declining support for Israel among younger Americans to widespread misinformation and a lack of familiarity with Israeli civil rights and governance.
These public-diplomacy campaigns occurred alongside international condemnation regarding the conduct of the Israel–Hamas war. Major international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as a United Nations special committee, published findings concluding that Israeli military operations, extensive civilian infrastructure destruction, and the blockade of humanitarian aid in Gaza met the legal criteria for genocide. The Israeli government has rejected the genocide characterization, arguing that its operations are defensive measures directed against Hamas following the October 7 attacks.
Early life and education Penn was born in New York City and raised in Riverdale. His father, a Lithuanian immigrant, was a kosher poultry-plant owner, who died when Penn was 10 years old. He was raised by his mother Blanche, who worked as a schoolteacher. Both of his brothers credit Penn with keeping the family together after their father's death. Penn graduated from Horace Mann School in Riverdale in 1972. He conducted his first poll, which determined that the Horace Mann faculty was more liberal than was the country at large on the issue of civil rights, when he was 13, as well as polling classmates about sex and drugs.
Penn entered Harvard University in 1972. According to his brother, Penn was initially rejected, but he was able to get Harvard's dean to reverse the decision after taking the train to Boston and arguing his case. At Harvard, Penn majored in political science and, as a city editor of the Harvard Crimson, wrote and reported 90 articles. His work for the paper included reporting and analysis on buying a stereo, the Cambridge City Council elections of 1975, the Harvard admission process, and the controversy over the proposed construction in Cambridge of the John F. Kennedy Library. With Doug Schoen, who he attended Horace Mann School with, Penn co-founded Penn & Schoen – now the global market research firm Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates – in their dorm room. He graduated from Harvard in 1976.*
Early political campaigns
Ed Koch mayoral campaign of 1977 and 1985 While Penn was a first-year law student at Columbia University in 1976, he and his business partner Douglas Schoen became the pollsters for congressman Ed Koch's second run for mayor of New York City. In 1977, with the campaign against Mario Cuomo for the Democratic nomination in full swing, Penn sought a way to conduct polls more quickly than the mainframe and punched card system he and Schoen were making use of at Columbia University. He purchased a self-assembled "microcomputer" kit and created a program that could compile polls in a fraction of the time than had been done before. By creating this "overnight poll" system, Penn allowed the campaign to conduct polls to determine messages and evaluate tactics on a daily basis, a tactical advantage that contributed to Koch's eventual victory over Cuomo.
Penn also played a significant role in Koch's campaign during the 1985 New York City mayoral election, for which he and Schoen developed direct mailings, set up phone banks, organized volunteers and canvassers, and coordinated fundraising. That year, Koch won both the Democratic primary and the general election, defeating New York City Council President Carol Bellamy.
Luis Herrera Campins presidential campaign of 1978 and Latin American politics In 1978, Penn conducted polling for the presidential campaign of Luis Herrera Campins in Venezuela. Because Venezuela did not at that time have universal phone coverage, Penn partnered with Venezuelan polling firms to go door-to-door to collect interviews. He also helped the campaign develop the slogan "Ya Basta," or "Enough," critical of the incumbent party's spending policies. Herrera carried the election by about 3%.
The election marked the beginning of Penn's successful involvement in Latin American politics. Since 1979, Penn's firm has helped elect more than a half dozen heads of state in Latin America, including Venezuela's Carlos Andrés Pérez, Belisario Betancur and Virgilio Barco Vargas of Colombia, and Leonel Fernández of the Dominican Republic.
Menachem Begin 1981 campaign for prime minister In 1981, Penn & Schoen conducted polling for Menachem Begin's campaign for re-election as Prime Minister of Israel. When Begin called Penn in January 1981, public polling for the June parliamentary election showed that Begin's party, Likud, would lose the elections by a margin of 58 seats for the rival Labor Party to 20 seats for Begin's Likud party. A New York Times article published in March of that year stated that Begin was "probably in his final months as Prime Minister." Penn & Schoen applied the rapid polling techniques they had developed on Ed Koch's first campaign for mayor to provide Begin with a daily understanding of attitudes of the Israeli electorate. Ultimately, Begin defeated Labor, led by Shimon Peres, by 10,405 votes out of more than 1.5 million cast.
Corporate work In the late 1980s, Penn was the force behind his firm's drive to win corporate consulting clients. Texaco, which was experiencing image problems due to bankruptcy after the Pennzoil v. Texaco court case, was the firm's first major corporate client.
In 1993, Penn, Schoen & Berland was engaged by AT&T's new advertising agency FCB to guide a response to the "Friends and Family" plan offered by MCI, a then-upstart competitor for AT&T's long-distance services. To help AT&T understand how best to counter MCI's strongest messages, Penn created the "mall testing" methodology for competitive advertising research. In the mall tests, Penn showed randomly selected mall shoppers MCI ads head-to-head with proposed new AT&T ads. Using this methodology, Penn's firm determined messages resulting in AT&T's "True" plan and its $200 million advertising campaign. As a result of this campaign, by the end of 1994, AT&T had signed up 14 million new long-distance customers.
Penn has been a strategic advisor to Bill Gates and Microsoft since the mid-1990s. Penn began working with Microsoft when the company faced antitrust litigation initiated by the U.S. Department of Justice. Penn also created the famous "blue sweater" advertisement that featured Gates, which were intended to restore trust in the company amid the antitrust litigation. In 2006, a survey of global opinion leaders found that Microsoft was the world's most trusted company, an accomplishment which The Wall Street Journal partially attributed to Penn's advice.
His other corporate clients have included Ford Motor Company, Merck & Co., Verizon, BP, and McDonald's.
Microsoft Corporation