Mark Herschberg

“It’s normal in podcasting to have to work quite hard to find the golden soundbite from your guest, edit their quotes to ‘get to the point’, or clean up their speech. But I have to say I don’t think I’ve ever edited someone less on an interview as everything Mark says is so succinct, articulate and crystal clear. Because of that, he really made my job easier this week as a guest for our podcast. I also really like his use of clever and logical analogies to get his points across -- that is always worth its weight in gold for media interviews and speaking slots. ”

“Mark was a phenomenal CISO at EXOS and a pleasure to work with. He is extremely educated on all matters of privacy & security and goes above and beyond to share this knowledge with others. Mark very quickly learned EXOS' business and created great relationships throughout the company.”

“Mark is a versatile leader with strong technical background and management abilities, with a natural instinct for business goals alignment. Mark helped the company pushing it to next levels while growing the engineering team hiring great talent, next generation architecture, and product development. Mark is very kind, smart and easy to work with. I recommend Mark for technical leadership roles.”

“I worked as a direct report to Mark as both the Director of Data Science and as the Lead Software Architect while at Flashpoint. Mark provided tremendous vision and tactical guidance on several fronts. Mark's guidance was instrumental in defining the next generation architecture of the companies flagship software system. Mark also aided in defining the analytics strategy for Flashpoint's unique data sources. He provided tremendous insights on many facets of the organization from technical strategy, product development, business planning and general line management. Mark is very personable, intelligent and easy to work with. I highly recommend Mark for top level leadership roles. ”

“Mark is a very accomplished manager of people. I found his strengths to be putting processes in place and making sure those processes and workflows work with the team, and not against them. I would not hesitate to recommend him and would love to work with him again.”

“For 6 months I had the pleasure of working under Mark as a QA Engineer. He always made an effort to talk to each of us about not only work but what was going on outside of work. He always demonstrated a caring attitude and was very understanding that sometimes life can get in the way of work. I always felt that I was able to express my ideas or concerns. With Mark we had a voice as to what was going on with current projects which meant that whenever we succeeded, we did so as a team and when we failed we never pointed fingers. During that time my associates and I were able to learn and implement new technologies that allowed Madison Logic to scale. Mark always demonstrated a strong understanding of current technologies and best practices. He was able to help guide the dev team and me to the appropriate solution for the company without directly interfering. He would listen to both sides of an argument and then base his decision on what made most sense at that time and explain why he made that decision. CTO's I've worked with in the past never made that kind of effort.”

“Mark is an extremely well versed technologist. He was instrumental in building out a team of very qualified engineers, as well as putting into place robust processes that scale. He is a true leader.”

“I had a unique opportunity a while back to hire someone to be my boss. Our department needed a strong leader who can organize our disparate teams, introduce proven technology to increase our capabilities, and quantify the Technology teams' achievements to the rest of the company. Mark Herschberg surpassed expectations for all these requirements. Mark jumped into an environment with multiple Engineering teams, each with a unique set of technical skills, problems, and needs. He brought in a wealth of experience from his career to expand our simple yet critical areas such as API standards, build platforms, monitoring tools, and overall technology stack. That allowed our engineers and systems to mature from a startup-like environment to a robust and scaleable enterprise systems. Mark’s management style is goals focused, yet hands off. Teams are allowed to research and adopt solutions for unique needs which is then shared across other teams. Mark is a great mentor and inspiration for his team by encouraging us to pursue new solutions, expand our personal networks, and identifying personal growth potentials. Mark’s charismatic traits is well received by people in all departments throughout the entire company. He works well to bridge gaps between departments as he can relate day to day conversations to things happening in the technology world. He manages very well up with management and down with individuals in his department. One especially remarkable ability which Mark possess is in delivering great speeches on any topics ranging from simple adoption of a specific technology to complex discussion of the overall technology behind our advertising platform. All the mentioned traits, abilities, and successes mentioned above makes Mark a well respected, trusted, and honored leader allowing companies like Madison Logic to rapidly expand and flourish.”

“I had the pleasure of working closely with Mark to staff the technology team at Madison Logic. Mark was a great mentor in helping me learn to recruit in the tech world and hire tech talent. He was always patient in teaching me the lingo (.NET, Agile, C#) and back stories of the technologies we used at Madison Logic. He is easy to talk to and very approachable; making staffing his team easy since he was always available to offer feedback, clarification, and coaching. I would say that coaching and communication are two of Mark's strong suits. Mark Herschberg would be a great asset to any business and is very knowledgeable on all of the cutting edge technologies available; as well as future tech trends. ”

“Mark has the unique ability to bridge the tech world into a business model and communication succinctly into marketing opportunities. He was a great team player - always open to suggestions and adapting his work flow to better serve the business. Even better, for a marketer, he easily and successfully represented our firm at industry events, provided engaging interviews, panel presentations and articles to support our innovation message to the industry. ”

“Mark is not only a great CTO, but he also has been a champion for sales which is truly unique. With a myriad of vendors requesting his time to pitch him, Mark required that meetings be set with our sales team so that we could pitch their company's marketing department on our solutions as a precursor to any meeting with him. Mark turned what is typically a drain on his time to a lead generation practice which helped drive revenue at Madison Logic. This forward thinking makes Mark not only an asset to any IT department, but to all departments and the entire company. I highly recommend Mark as someone who is not only an expert on technology, but truly understands the overall business and helps drive the success of a company. ”

“I've come to know Mark as an accomplished, tech-savvy manager/exec with a dorky sense of humour, the heart of an educator, and the spirit of a nerd. He can run a tight ship, whether a vendor meeting or an IT department. He treats people with kindness. His high standards encourage his co-workers to show initiative and take responsibility. He helps you reach beyond your professional comfort zone. He thinks on his feet, listens patiently, speaks confidently, values investigation, and foments discussion. ”

“Mark is an incredibly smart and reliable manager, who is both likeable and effective. He is able to act as a conduit between the needs of the business and the development team to drive projects to completion. I highly recommend him for a CTO or management position in any organization. ”

“It was a pleasure to work with Mark, his leadership philosophy is excellent and modern which nurtures a productive and efficient team. He encouraged positive debate within the team. He has comprehensive knowledge about Software Development. I learned a lot from him and always found him very helpful.”

“Mark is a savvy CTO who has very strong skills on the tech side as well as a keen understanding of the financials. He clearly understands the logistics of working in a fast paced environment and managing the bottom line. At Shermans Mark had a challenging assignment and successfully worked well with the existing tech team and all other departments. Mark is an excellent communicator who knows how to get the most out of his staff. He is an innovative thinker who consistently comes up multiple solutions!”

“From a sales perspective, Mark is the ideal CTO. Not only is he a valuable resource for explaining complex technical matters to clients, but Mark also generates sales leads through networking and other referral activities.”

“I have worked with Mark for about two years at Madison Logic. Mark is a major driver of the company technical success. He has a combination of technical brilliance, strategic vision and has executed at every turn. He is wholeheartedly dedicated to excellence, and has the ability to trust his team and foster their growth. His ability to communicate technical topics to non-technical colleagues is amazingly rare and unbelievably valuable. ”

“Mark is an experienced executive, who greatly improved the performance of our software engineering team and successfully lead development of the next generation of Madison Logic lead generation software. I was impressed by his knowledge, organizational skills and attentiveness to his subordinates.”

“Mark is a brilliant, natural leader. Upon joining Madison Logic, he immediately gained the respect of his team members, other employees, and management. He fostered a sense of collaboration and giving one's personal best by respectfully modeling a strong work ethic and constant drive to ask and answer challenging questions.”

“When Mark Herschberg first arrived at Shermans Travel he faced the most difficult decision that a CTO can face: whether the current code base should be saved, or re-written from scratch. Exploring the question in an empirical fashion, he first made some efforts to save the existing code base -- this gave him insight into the depths of the problems, which were severe. I worked on that code base and, even though I have 13 years of PHP experience, I found the code to be an endless source of bugs. The problems were fundamental to the architecture, in particular the heavy reliance on cron jobs that existed outside of the Cake framework. Early on Herschberg began to realize that a complete re-write of the code base would be necessary. He also realized it would be important to build a first-class programming team to pull off what needed to be done. Though he had a limited budget he managed to assemble a highly agile team of quality programmers. Up till that point, Shermans Travel had suffered a long history of chaotic technology development. Herschberg brought a new discipline to the process: he implemented many elements of the Agile process, in particular daily scrum meetings and 2 week sprint cycles. He brought the business department leaders together in a room so that each leader could transparently see the urgency of every other leader's request for tech resources. This allowed the rational allocation of scarce tech resources. It also calmed much of the infighting that had occurred among the business leaders up till that time. By the summer of 2011, Herschberg decided that saving the old code base was a waste of resources. He decided to rebuild the entire code base of the company. This effort would take 8 months, but the end result was that, by early 2012, Shermans Travel had the best technology platform in its history, a platform that was strong enough to allow it to match the other big travel sites that compete in this space. Late in 2011 Shermans Travel suffered some revenue setbacks that caused it to seek cost savings from every department. Herschberg faced a number of very difficult questions about how to save money while still moving forward with the rebuilding of the code base. Herschberg did an excellent job of transitioning the company such that it relied more heavily on a remote team from Eastern Europe. In summary, Herschberg's time at Shermans Travel demonstrates that he is able to build a quality team, and build innovative technology, even while facing adverse external shocks such as revenue setbacks.”

“Mark is a true leader in every sense of the word. He has a wonderful enthusiasm for building and managing his team and brought a real sense of unity among the staff. Moreover he is just a pleasant person to work with and does not have any pretentiousness about him, regardless of his impressive background.”

“Mark is a visionary leader. He can make project to move into direction he appointed. The goals are clear and everyone knows what to do. As a CTO he emphasized quality of the software. Quality had always the highest priority and I really appreciated that as writing good code is always a pleasure and good code is more durable and maintainable and easier to develop. I hope to work with him again in the future.”

“Having worked with different levels of tech ops to CTO, Mr. Mark Hershberg successfully led his dept in powering the full scope of a site, aggressively maintaining the complexities of the current architecture while simultaneously planning and implementing a site-wide redesign; and doing so "invisibly" to the user and without disrupting the revenue stream. The positive energy he brings to his team and the company is unparalleled. His way of explaining complex problems and models through samples to an average front-end user makes comprehending the technical process and scope of core competences easy and re-iterates the importance of integrating technology and business practice. Mark is far from one-dimensional with superlative understanding of both business and technology and bridges the gap between the two - he is excellent at process integration which equates to long-term profit. He is an integral asset to any company seeking exponential success and long-lasting presence in the marketplace.”

“Mark is the measured voice of reason in a world of chaos. He is very open to criticism, differing opinions, and knows that great ideas can come from anywhere in an organization, always listening before he speaks. He drives daily incremental change and refinement with an eye towards lofty, but acheivable goals, while taking responsibility for guiding everyone to completion without micromanaging. Mark is a fantastic intermediary between business owners and developers, technically skilled and knowledgeable while diplomatic enough to explain complex technical details without being condescending or losing his audience. At ShermansTravel, Mark came into a development environment sorely hobbled by shoddy legacy code, ineffectual requirements, unobtainable deadlines, a lack of testing, and poor communication between development and other departments. During my time there, he made extraordinary strides to correct these issues and more, and I would be happy to work with him again.”

“While serving as CTO for a year and a half, Mark made a profound and lasting impact on our company, from spearheading fundamental site infrastructure improvements to promoting a goal-oriented company culture that values participation, engagement, transparency, and creativity. Highly motivated (even after 16-hour days!) and driven to success, Mark draws from a deep well of practical experience, both directly and indirectly related to technology development. To the latter point, he often uses personal antidote or general analogy/metaphor to successfully explain complex coding systems/schema to business stakeholders. During our tenure together, even if Mark was in a rush or putting out a fire he'd always take 5 minutes to illuminate a mystifying concept for me on my whiteboard. Mark is also keen at recognizing the strengths/weaknesses in his players, understanding how to assemble the right team for the right job. I sincerely hope we get another chance to work together.”

“Having worked closely with Mark for a year an a half, I can assert that he is extremely intelligent with many talents that standout. As a leader, teaching comes naturally to him, and he thrives in public speaking, commanding a room, and guiding a group. As CTO, he can take very complex development concepts and processes and make them understandable to all. While Mark has a strong voice and point of view, he also has an outstanding capacity for listening and always demonstrates sincere engagement in his interactions. He knows how to foster a democratic process for development, with consideration for all business owners and the company at large. He brings real value to an organization from a cultural standpoint, encouraging the sharing of talents and knowledge, and fostering both an academic and social environment. On a personal level, Mark is genuinely a good guy, and somebody I feel privileged to have worked alongside at ShermansTravel Media.”

“Mark is an extremely intelligent technology executive with extensive industry experiences and deep background in the academia field(his professor is one the inventors of RSA algorithm and Mark still teaches class in MIT!) It was a great experience working under Mark where he demonstrated his stella leadership in project management, conflicts resolution, time management, team culture development as well as helping individual's career development. He treats everybody with respect and equality. It was truly an honor to have him as a mentor.”

“I have worked with many CTO's, and none have had the business accumen of Mark Herschberg. He is able to not only understand technology issues and lead a team of developers, but also has the ability to successfully operate the P&L for a growing division and translate marketing and business initiatives into actionable solutions.”

“While at Vaultus, Mark played a key leadership role within the Engineering group and was responsible for growing this part of the organization. He exhibited a strong command of the software development process and was the main architect of the software platform. Though not having worked directly on a project with him during his stay at the company, Mark was always easy to interact with and his penchant for teaching has helped others gain a better understanding of the technology. After having left the company, Mark has always stayed the course for building upon his skill set and his focus and determination have helped him to achieve entrepreneurial success. I have great admiration for Mark and his drive to lead teams of people into new exciting technology relevant to current trends. I've known Mark for a number of years now on both a professional and personal level and he is someone that has maintained his integrity and standards and is consistent in his approach to finding solutions. I hope that we will have the opportunity to work together again in the future.”

“Mark combines solid business sense with a deep understanding of tech, driving the organization on all fronts to move ahead. His approach fosters full team involvement, embraces the innovative suggestions of others within the group and encourages individual professional growth and career advancement. My sense in working with him was that he was looking out not only for the ultimate success of the project, but also for the best of all committed to seeing it through.”

“Mark is professional and extremely intuitive, a great addition to any project. He exhibits great thought leadership and brings solid experience to the table.”

“Mark was definitely one of the better hiring decisions I have made. Mark has a very sharp mind and I always enjoyed sitting in front of a white board with him one on one to brainstorm a new idea or possible solutions to an engineering problem. In addition, and maybe more importantly, Mark's attitude was always 100% "can-do" and positive. He never had issues of ego or ownership and always welcomed other viewpoints or approaches that may have differed from his own. Basically Mark was a lot of fun to work with on a team and someone I would enjoy working with again.”

“Mark is an exceptional leader, and a great teacher. Mark introduced agile development methodology to our team, and was able to guide us through the process. It is rare for a business leader to possess technical knowledge, and Mark is one of those rare people. He was able to communicate effectively with both the development team and the business, and to resolve conflict between the two. Everyone on the project looked up to Mark as a leader, and his input was very valuable to all of us. Given the opportunity, I would love to work with Mark again.”

“Mark helped our team get a major project off the whiteboards and into production. He was instrumental and innovative in helping to establish a solid foundation for the team and the project. Mark’s a true professional and pleasure to work with. He's a major asset for any team.”

“Mark is a terrific asset to any team. He brings a tremendous amount of technology know- how and innovation into a business environment. On our project, Mark introduced the "agile" development methodology and was instrumental in bringing a team of 20+ people up to speed on the process and the benefits. He understands the value of speed and exudes the true start-up entrepreneurial spirit.”

“Mark is a brilliant contributor to any technical endeavor and he has a passion for doing this the right way. He is fearless in tackling complex technical and organizational obstacles and his creativity make him a real joy as a collaborator. He is an active listener with a talent for incorporating constraints and suggestions of others into a larger solution. I look forward to working with him again at some point.”

“Mark is not only a brilliant contributor to any technical endeavor, he has a passion for creating a positive change in the world. He is fearless in tackling complex technical and organizational obstacles and his creativity make him a real joy as a collaborator. He is an active listener with a talent for incorporating constraints and suggestions of others into a larger solution. I look forward to working with him again at some point.”

“Mark is an experienced technologist who easily adapts to different business situations and organizations, quickly assessing a situation and working to fill the gaps. He is methodical and thoughtful, distilling complex issues into a clear set of actionable steps that drive towards a solution. Mark was a key member of the >nbbc team in the months following our launch.”

“Mark’s upbeat personality and organization skills instilled confidence and reduced stress during time-critical circumstances. It was a pleasure working with him, knowing any outstanding vendor issues would be handled efficiently.”

“Mark is a great person to take direction from. He communicates clearly and effectively. I loved working under Marks guidance.”

“At the time, I worked in the delivery organization that was responsible for the implementation of the software platform that Mark developed. In my role, I would interact extensively with Mark and the development team on product enhancements and recommendations. Mark was very helpful and responsive to the needs of our clients. He always asked insightful questions and wanted to understand more of how clients were using the products to improve them going forward. I would highly recommend Mark to any organization.”

“I have worked with Mark in the MIT Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program (UPOP), an innovative internship program administered by the MIT School of Engineering. UPOP is a cocurricular program that exposes talented undergraduates to the multifaceted nature of professional practice and helps them make more effective transitions from academia to the real world. UPOP students receive coaching from engineering and management faculty, as well as industry professionals as they engage in a preemployment workshop during an intense weeklong session in January. Mark has volunteered as such an industry professional for five years, coaching students in the workshop as they prepare for their summer internships. Mark has not only been a fabulous role model for the students, he won the Deshpande UPOP Service Award for his excellence and commitment. As a faculty director for the UPOP program, I have found working with Mark to be a unique pleasure. I heartily recommend him.”

“Mark combines deep technical expertise with superb management skills. He was able to recruit and lead a team of engineers for multiple projects under extremely tight timelines. Mark brings the right amount of process and discipline to the task. He is a tremendous asset to have on your team.”

“Mark is both a great idea generator and implementer. He is equally successful with engaging MIT students, staff, faculty, and the other intructors who are involved in our program. This is not an easy feat.”

“Mark was an excellent leader. He was always available to talk or help me out with whatever issues I was currently tackling.”

“Mark was instrumental in adding process to a somewhat chaotic startup environment. He is able to walk the line between planning for the future and responding to issues as they arise--a crucial skill in a small, growing company if it is to succeed.”

“Mark accelerates from 0 to 60 in 3.6 seconds. He came on board at Root to hire and organize our tech team from scratch. It was incredibly important to us to get our technology into development as rapidly as possible. Mark found, hired, organized and managed our engineering team through that crucial formative stage better than we thought possible.”

“With his breadth and depth of technical knowledge ranging from cryptography to bond market design, Mark was an excellent resource at Root. Moreover, he was able to bring together a diverse range of staff and institute a rich engineering methodology and ethos. Eminently approachable for technical, business and personal development issues, Mark is indeed drawn from a rare and valuable species.”

“Mark has a clear and concise vision of how things work and really grew the company with talented people. He then layed a good foundation for building our products. I'd definitely work with him again.”

“Mark makes the IT world run more smoothly. His keen eye for the troublespots that commonly plague software development has served him well. Whether engaged hands-on to solve frustrating build and development problems, or tackling the most abstract of architectural issues, the result is always the same: Technology solutions that satisify the need for flexibility demanded by today's IT customers.”

“Mark was instrumental in getting us back on track. He brought order to our enginering process with better tools and practices. He saved time and effort by helping the team focus on root causes of problems instead of putting out fires, and smoothed relations between management and engineering by opening communication and cutting down on last-minute changes that aggravated developers.”

“Mark is a very smart & intelligent manager. He believes in hiring smart people for a job. He would listen to any idea or issue with a fresh mind, without any bias. His decisions are transparent and easily communicated to the team. He is a very good mentor. Above all, he is a good and kind person and it was very nice working for him.”

“Mark was a pivotal engineer at Painted Word. I asked him, ‘What do you want to do?’ He answered the question by writing a book that helped launch the UPOP program at the MIT School of Engineering—a program about applying engineering skills in practice. He also took on a software project that succeeded and generated several million dollars of business for Painted Word.”