Scott L. Kauffman (born 1956) is an American business manager. He is currently chair and CEO of the advertising holding company

MDC Partners MDC Partners Inc. is an advertising and marketing holding company based in New York City. MDC is structured as a partnership model, in which it initially acquires a majority stake in its partner agency, leaving a percentage of ownership with the f ...

. In July 1992, ''

Advertising Age ''Ad Age'' (known as ''Advertising Age'' until 2017) is a global media brand that publishes news, analysis, and data on marketing and media. Its namesake magazine was started as a broadsheet newspaper in Chicago in 1930. ''Ad Age'' appears in mu ...

'' named him one of the top 100 marketers in the country and was named in 1996 as one of twenty "Digital Media Masters".

Early life and education

He was born in

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

, New Jersey to Ellwood and Shirley Kauffman, and grew up with his sister Jane, and brothers Geoffrey and

Matthew Matthew may refer to: * Matthew (given name) * Matthew (surname) * ''Matthew'' (ship), the replica of the ship sailed by John Cabot in 1497 * ''Matthew'' (album), a 2000 album by rapper Kool Keith * Matthew (elm cultivar), a cultivar of the Chi ...

. Kauffman holds an A.B. in English from

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely fol ...

and an MBA in marketing from New York University's Stern School of Business. In 1973, he appeared briefly in

Steven E. de Souza Stephen or Steven is a common English first name. It is particularly significant to Christians, as it belonged to Saint Stephen ( grc-gre, Στέφανος ), an early disciple and deacon who, according to the Book of Acts, was stoned to death; h ...

's first film, ''

Arnold's Wrecking Co. ''Arnold's Wrecking Company'' is the first film written and directed by Steven E. de Souza, released in 1973. It was filmed on Library Place, Princeton, New Jersey, with residents of the home of Ellwood and Shirley Kauffman receiving credits for ...

Career

Throughout his career, Kauffman has worked for a variety of media companies including Benton & Bowles,

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...

, and

Time Warner Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States. It was originally established in 1972 by ...

in the founding of ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cult ...

.'' His next job was as a vice-president of

CompuServe CompuServe (CompuServe Information Service, also known by its initialism CIS) was an American online service provider, the first major commercial one in the world – described in 1994 as "the oldest of the Big Three information services (the oth ...

, where he worked on all of the online brands and pioneered SpryNet,

's ISP service. With help from Goldman Sachs, Kauffman participated in the development of one of the first

IPOs In demonology, Ipos is an Earl and powerful Prince of Hell (a Duke to some authors) who has thirty-six legions of demons under his command. He knows and can reveal all things, past, present and future (only the future to some authors, and past a ...

of the Internet industry. He left

in 1997 to become president and CEO of ClickOver, a company focused on developing management solutions for Internet advertising. ClickOver later became Adknowledge after acquiring Focalink. Before leaving AdKnowledge and the company was sold to

CMGI Steel Connect, Inc. is an American company that provides supply chain management services to software companies. During the dot-com bubble, the company, which was then known as CMGI, Inc., had a market capitalization of $41 billion and owned the ...

, AdKnowledge grew to over 80 employees with more than 100 customers. Kauffman then spent time with eCoverage, a direct-to-consumer online insurance company; Coremetrics, which was acquired by IBM in 2010; and MusicNow, an online music service partnered with FullAudio that was later sold to

Circuit City Circuit City is an American consumer electronics retail company, which was founded in 1949 by Samuel Wurtzel as the Wards Company, operated stores across the United States, and pioneered the electronics superstore format in the 1970s. After m ...

. In 2005, he became CEO of the San Francisco-based digital-magazine service provider Zinio. In 2006, Scott was named president and chief operating officer of

BlueLithium Gurbaksh Singh Chahal (born July 17, 1982) is an Indian-American internet entrepreneur who is the founder of several internet advertising companies. Chahal founded his first advertising network at an age of 16 and two years later, became a mill ...

. On December 4, 2008, he was named CEO of

Geeknet Geeknet, Inc. is a Fairfax County, Virginia–based company that is a subsidiary of GameStop. The company was formerly known as VA Research, VA Linux Systems, VA Software, and SourceForge, Inc. History VA Research VA Research was founded in Nov ...

, the owner of

SourceForge.net SourceForge is a web service that offers software consumers a centralized online location to control and manage open-source software projects and research business software. It provides source code repository hosting, bug tracking, Mirror site ...

ThinkGeek ThinkGeek was an American retailer that catered to computer enthusiasts and "geek culture". Described as a " Sharper Image for sysadmins", their merchandise has been likened to "toys for adults, novelties designed to appeal to both your inner ch ...

Slashdot ''Slashdot'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''/.'') is a social news website that originally advertised itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters". It features news stories concerning science, technology, and politics that are submitted and evalu ...

, and Freecode. Kauffman became chairman of the board of directors of MDC Partners in 2006. He was appointed CEO in 2015 after then-CEO Miles Nadal was investigated by the

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The primary purpose of the SEC is to enforce the law against market ...

Other activities

Kauffman is the chairman of the board of directors of both ChooseEnergy.com and Lotame, as well as a board member of Vindicia. In addition, he is actively involved in supporting

ALS Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control voluntary muscles. ALS is the most comm ...

research after his son was diagnosed at the age of 27. In addition to being involved with multiple ALS-related organizations, he serves on the board of the

ALS Association The ALS Association is an American nonprofit organization that funds global amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) research, provides care services and programs to people affected by ALS through its nationwide network of chapters, and works with ALS ...

. Furthermore, Kauffman is founder and chairman of his own ALS organization, Iron Horse Foundation.

References

External links

Bloomberg profile
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kauffman, Scott 1956 births Living people Geeknet New York University Stern School of Business alumni People from Palo Alto, California People from Princeton, New Jersey Vassar College alumni American chief operating officers American technology chief executives American advertising executives

Early life and education

Career

Other activities

References

Further reading

External links