Mark Kaminsky

Mark is a failed historian and a successful communications consultant.

In the latter capacity, Mark has helped to create attention-getting, memorable campaigns for a variety of clients, including “Most Honest City in America” for Honest Tea that won a Gold Lion at Cannes in 2011.

He and his colleagues produced “Don’t Forget Ed,” the College Board’s effort to elevate the issue of education in the 2012 Presidential election campaign. Their work included a widely-covered installation on the National Mall featuring 857 empty desks to represent the number of high school students who drop out every hour of every school day.
He led a campaign for the Environmental Defense Fund featuring Mayor John Fetterman of Braddock, PA to pass environmental legislation in the U.S. House, and the “This is Public Health” campaign to promote awareness of public health schools. Mark’s also worked with Subway, Pfizer, Audi, US Fund for UNICEF, Time Warner and Microsoft.

Prior to starting SS+K with his friends Lenny Stern and Rob Shepardson, Mark worked at agencies you’ve probably never heard of because they were devoured by soulless holding companies years ago. During that time, he worked with American Express, American Airlines & Morgan Stanley, among others. As a communications advisor to the Russian Ministry of Privatization (GKI) in 1993, he worked on a campaign to promote economic and political reform in the former Soviet Union. A communist-affiliated newspaper identified Mark as an American spy, a charge he has yet to deny.

Mark studied for a PhD in American history until he and, more importantly, his advisor, recognized Mark’s complete lack of an academic disposition.


Mark is an Iowan although he currently lives near the Hudson River. His three kids — a landscape painter, a fashion designer and a derivatives trader — attend public schools in Westchester County, N.Y.