mark protus

Working with Mark has been one of my best experiences as a professional! He has such a “can do” attitude that it is hard not to raise the bar on your work consistently. Mark is very scrappy and can get done what does not seem achievable. He has been a great teacher, coach, and mentor to me. He is extremely kind and always thinks of ways to help others on the team grow and develop. I would not be where I am today without his guidance and support! If you were to highlight Mark’s top skills, they are: Passion for learning, technical aptitude, mentoring, and leading through ambiguity. These qualities make him great at what he does and inspire others around him. To me, this is what makes Mark an excellent leader.

Do you want an amazing change agent who can make big things happen? Hire Mark. I had the pleasure of working for Mark as a consultant and then as a direct report at Microsoft for nearly 4 years. Three qualities personify Mark as a leader, a manager, and a co-worker: • Visionary, • Creative, • Compassionate Champion. Mark is an incredible visionary in online learning with a powerful and infectious can-do attitude. His support and mentoring, plus countless times he championed our team, allowed us to work swiftly to create a transformative online learning experience that people flocked to and became a 2 year WW initiative for Microsoft’s developer division, where we blew the doors off our goals year after year. One of my greatest managers in 20 years at Microsoft.

Mark is a savvy, intelligent, and discerning learning professional, and we feel so fortunate that he serves on our board. He is consistently up-to-the-minute regarding the latest learning trends and consumer and generational behavior. His ability to effectively communicate his wealth of information sets him apart from his peers. His communication style galvanizes individuals and groups to act on what he shares regarding contacts, research, recent articles, and his own experience.

Mark and I worked together on launching a major new online proof-of-concept this year. As a new employee to the organization, I was fortunate to have Mark there to help guide me towards the right resources, help our larger proof-of-concept team navigate our internal processes, and provide the technical/creative/business guidance to help our product launch on time and on-budget. Mark’s unique strength is that he not only understands the technical implications of any online project, but also understands the business implications of his project, has terrific communication skills, is creatively gifted, and has the rare people skills to ensure everyone feels good about the end result and how it was produced. Mark is one of the most personable, capable, and creative individuals I have had the pleasure of working with during my career. I would highly recommend him to any organization that needs to ensure their project is done professionally and positively.

I worked closely with Mark to design and create our unconscious bias e-learning course. He has been fantastic to work with. Mark is a true partner in the sense that he brings the technical component to the table and his perspective on the subject matter and constantly thinks about the end user. Mark is a good listener and problem-solver. We ran into bandwidth issues related to some additional work we wanted to do, and Mark was able to tap into his network to get me a great vendor, who we are working with to create additional micro learnings. What I appreciate the most is Mark’s quick actions and thinking to make things happen.

Mark has been a friend, colleague, customer, and partner in many different incarnations of our lives. He has a vision and many dreams for the learning industry. Mark networks globally, leads/participates in extended interdisciplinary teams, from ideation to GTM, and has high expectations for himself and the folks on his extended team. Mark marries creative vision with business goals and concrete innovative action to translate the vision into reality. He thinks extremely fast and is adept at building and managing high-performance teams that keep pace :). He is also a fun and creative guy to work with. Following his path at his pace is a privilege and personal growth. My unequivocal recommendations for anybody who wishes to work with him – especially if there is scope for creativity and innovation in your organization. I know he brings good luck and transformation to any team he joins.