Understanding. Clarity. Connection.
Partner to C-level leaders navigating big transitions, strengthening clarity in decision-making and deepening connection with self and teams. Strategic counsel to businesses leaders experiencing turbulent growth, and program designs that deliver enduring change and measurable results.
Adversity. Resistance. Uncertainty.
Challenging parts of the human experience. The struggles and hardships – physical, mental, spiritual, intellectual, or emotional – are what teach us the most about ourselves and how to navigate life, and how our ability to make meaningful, enduring change determines our experience.
Knowing that doesn't make it much easier.
How we might navigate these challenges better is foundational for those I work together with, and is at the core of what I love to do.
From the clients and companies I serve, to the businesses I've founded or partnered with, I've found the key to progress is not in having all the answers, but in knowing how to ask the right questions.
Published frequently, speaks occasionally. And a love for exploring human performance, adversity, and anything outdoors.
Speaking engagements include the Seattle Interactive Conference, OMMA, CA World Technology Conference, and advisory board member for the iMedia Commerce Summit, and have been published in various industry communications including Ad Age, The Drum, Contagious, Campaign, The Next Web, Digiday, VentureBeat, and The Huffington Post.
Leadership Development
Partner to executives, leadership teams, entrepreneurs and athletes. Leadership coaching and personal development company ThomasMarc & Co. strives to further understand what drives individual and team growth, resilience to adversity, and creates personalized approaches and development programs to improve performance, manage change successfully, and realize each clients full potential.
Next Generation
My passion project — Leadership Motion — inspired by interactions with emerging leaders and teams, the Leadership Motion movement aims to close the growing gap between leadership development and the critical nature of leading through the challenges technological acceleration increasingly creates.
Leadership Motion. A better way for leaders to develop the capacity needed to meet the uncertainty, shifting priorities, and limited resources bundled with high-growth expectations of tomorrow's teams.
New Ventures Partner
For nearly 30 years I’ve been part of start-ups and global enterprises, alongside founders, leaders and teams. Ten of those years guiding strategies for leaders of global brands including Ford, Microsoft, Aston Martin, Dell Technologies, and Amazon, as a chief strategy officer, and a global client solution partner, at WPP (NYSE:WPP) the worlds largest creative, media and technology transformation company.
My key learning across business challenges?
The gap between output and throughput. The unlock? A support structure around team alignment with the value they create, and shaping a mindset focused on value creation vs. delivery systems.
Thomas brings a rare balance of big picture strategic thinking and get-it-done execution chops. Never afraid to take on the sorely needed, but challenging assignments or to call a spade a spade (with uncommon empathy/tact). Working with Thomas is delight - always joyful, never flustered, he's one of those people you can always count on, that you get excited to go to work with, and that the team rallies behind.
Laurent Burman
Global Corporate
Partnerships & Strategy
Amazon
Thomas is the calm in the strategic and operational storm everyone wants around. Whether he's leading from the front or playing a supporting role, you can count on Thomas to be infinitely accountable.
Brandon Geary
Principal, Brand Innovation Lab
Amazon
I can state unequivocally that Thomas is a gifted strategist with a sharp intellect and exceptional foresight. He also possesses a unique combination of business savvy and technical acumen. These characteristics, combined with an amiable and adaptive personality, make him an asset to any company or endeavor.
Michael Trader
Co-founder & Board Member
M2SYS Technologies
What I love...
Working together with individuals and teams to rethink ‘leading change’ at the personal, cultural, and operational level.
What inspires me...
Help teams align on the value they create, and shape a mindset focused on value creation vs. delivery systems.
What I do...
Senior leadership partner and counsel to clients who face a limiting barrier or aim to navigate a unique challenge.
Personal Meaning & Inspiration
There is so much more to each of us than a resume could hope to illustrate. Our resume helps depict what we’ve accomplished, but our journey is so much more interesting; we gather experiences that help define who we are and what purpose we aim to serve.
Some of us discover the path we want to pursue early, and some of us need to explore several paths to uncover our purpose. My experiences would suggest I am in the second group. Of those experiences, a few stand out for the influence they provided.
Like most, my life has had a fair amount of challenge and adversity. Some life-shaping victories and some incredibly depressing defeats. I’ve started small businesses that succeeded and failed, survived and rebuilt after a traumatic brain injury in the Cascade mountains, and served in the Marine Corps in hostile environments. I’ve run triathlons, worked in an emergency room as part of EMT training, and practice Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. To me, the experiences that mattered most also required a level of discomfort and hardship – sometimes known, sometimes unknown.
The struggles and hardships – physical, mental, spiritual, intellectual, or emotional – are what teach us the most about ourselves and how to navigate life.
My closest friends, colleagues, and mentors from various walks of life, all share one thing in common. They have dealt with adversity, they have new struggles, and for the most part they recognize each challenge life presents as an opportunity to improve. Adversity is simply a part of the human experience. We strive to avoid struggle and adversity, and yet we recognize it also provides incredible value.
The reason I enjoy leadership coaching and strategic counsel so much today is due to the similarities of leveraging experiences to unpack problems and navigate challenges in collaboration with others.
As my journey continues, I am digging deeper into ways to build individual and team resilience to adversity, and better understand what it is that holds us back from reaching our highest potential. How people might see difficult challenges in a new light could be helpful to those who frequently struggle or avoid the challenges in life only to miss an opportunity to better themselves and help others.
That’s just about everyone, including me.
