Mark Walsh (businessman)

Mark Walsh (born in 1954) is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and political activist.
Walsh graduated from Union College in 1976. Walsh started his career as a television newscaster at a West Virginia CBS affiliate. He held this position for two years before leaving to pursue an MBA at the Harvard Business School, which he received in 1980. After graduating from Harvard, Walsh worked for four years as a director of New Business Development at HBO.
In 1994, Walsh became president of GEnie, General Electric's online service. Walsh became a senior vice-president at AOL in 1995. While at AOL, Walsh oversaw AOL Enterprise, its business-to-business division. In 1997, Walsh joined VerticalNet, a business-to-business portal provider, as its CEO. Under Walsh's leadership, VerticalNet went public on the NASDAQ in 1999. Walsh is the managing partner of Ruxton Ventures, LLC, a private equity and investment firm he founded in early 2001. In 2005, Walsh became a senior executive fellow at the University of Maryland's Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship. As of 2008, Walsh is the CEO, founder, and chairman of GeniusRocket, a provider of crowdsourced advertising media.

Walsh has been active in bipartisan policy and liberal politics. He was named to the Board of Directors of the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington D.C., a pioneering think-tank founded by four former heads of the US Senate, Tom Daschle, George Mitchell, Howard Baker and Bob Dole. Walsh was recently named National Board Chairman of the New Leaders Council, a major leadership training institution for young progressive talent. In 2004, Walsh served as CEO of Progress Media, parent organization of Air America Radio. Walsh also served as the Chief Technology Advisor to the Democratic National Committee during 2001 and 2002, and as the Head of Internet Strategy for John Kerry for President. In 2006, Walsh took began serving as co-host of XM Satellite Radio's Left Jab Radio, a weekly political radio show.