Mark Thompson
Adjunct Faculty
Research Interests/Areas of Expertise
CEO & C-Suite Readiness, Succession & Leadership Transitions, Collaborative Science
Biography
Biography
Mark Thompson is recognized by Fortune and Harvard Business Review as the “World’s Top CEO Coach.” Forbes ranked him among America’s Investors with the Midas Touch. He has led over 100 board-level engagements with renowned CEOs and C-suites at Nasdaq-listed firms (ie, Amazon, Alphabet, Schwab, Meta, Apple); NYSE-listed (ie, Disney, HP, Pinterest, Pfizer) Euronext Paris-listed (Danone), PE/VC portfolio firms (BlackRock, Accel, SilverLake) and the KSA (Saudi) and the Abu Dhabi (UAE) Executive Offices. He is former Executive Producer of Schwab.com, America’s first online retail stock trading platform where he reported to founder Charles Schwab. He is former chief executive of The CEO Academy, a McKinsey, Wharton, SHRM enterprise. Thompson is former Chairman of Integration Associates (now a Silicon Labs/Texas Instruments co.); Chairman of Rioport (pioneered mp3); a founding board member of Esurance (first online insurance platform, now an Allstate company). He is a founding partner of the Chief Executive Alliance; the CEO Leadership Plan Review (LPR); founding advisor to Richard Branson for Virgin Unite Branson Entrepreneurship Centers, and Prof Cliff Nass’ Stanford University Realtime Venture Lab Initiative. Raised in Silicon Valley, he lives in Manhattan and Florida, and is a Golden Visa resident of the United Arab Emirates.
Publications
Thompson is a New York Times, Wall St Journal, and BusinessWeek bestselling author of over 300 articles (HBR, Fortune, Forbes, INC), CEO podcasts (www.ChiefExecutiveAlliance.com) and books (Harvard Business Review, HarperCollins, Pearson) in 21 languages.
• CEO READY: What You Need to Know to Earn the Job and Keep the Job (Harvard Business Review, 2025).
• Now, Build a Great Business (HarperCollins Leadership, 2011)
• ADMIRED: 21 Ways to Double Your Value, a New York Times & Wall St Journal Bestseller
• Success Built to Last: Creating a Life That Matters (Wharton School Publishing/Pearson Ed, 2006; Plume paperback 2007 was a BusinessWeek bestseller)
Education
MBA, Management, Golden Gate University, 1981
A.M. Masters, Media Studies, Stanford University, 1998
Ed.D., Leadership & Innovation, Purdue Global Universty, 2025