About
Mark Samber, PhD.
Managing Director, Pensum Consulting · Founder, Pensum Labs
For more than 30 years, Mark has built, led and fixed the operations behind digital work: as a management consultant, an agency co-founder, a client-side digital leader and an agency executive. Pensum is everything that career taught him about how firms that sell their time really run.
The story
Every side of the table.
Mark started his career as a management consultant with the Winthrop Group in Cambridge, Massachusetts, writing strategy case studies for companies including Raytheon's Beech Aircraft division, Comcast, Northwest Airlines and KKR. From 1996 to 1998 he helped launch Vitts, a high-speed data network company spun out of Cabletron Systems, writing its business plan and building its marketing and communications function. That work pulled him into the web for good.
In 1998 he co-founded Wunderkind Studios, a web development and digital agency in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and helped lead it until it was sold five years later. From 2004 he held software and web marketing roles at NextChoice, Meetinghouse (Cisco Systems) and Sonic Foundry, and in 2008 he founded Longwave Consulting Partners to do web development work, which he ran until 2013. From 2013 to 2017 he served as Director of Digital Strategy and Web Marketing at MUSC Health, the health system of the Medical University of South Carolina.
On the agency side again, he led digital strategy and user experience as Vice President of Strategic Services at MERGE from 2017 to 2018. He began working with mhp.si as a consultant in 2018 and joined full time in 2021. Today he is Vice President of Marketing Technology there, overseeing marketing automation and analytics and consulting on key accounts.
Along the way he architected an operations platform that four companies now use every day, with about 150 people managing projects, time and capacity in it. Pensum builds on all of it: consulting through Pensum Consulting and software through Pensum Labs, both built to help firms run from prospect to profit.
Mark holds a PhD in History and Policy from Carnegie Mellon University, which may explain his habit of asking how a firm got to be the way it is before suggesting how it should change.
Career
Thirty years, four vantage points.
- 2026 – present
Founder
Pensum: Pensum Consulting and Pensum Labs
Operations consulting and software for firms that sell their time.
- 2021 – present
VP, Marketing Technology
mhp.si
Oversees marketing automation and analytics, and consults on key accounts.
- 2018 – 2021
Consultant
mhp.si
Strategic and marketing technology consulting before joining full time.
- 2017 – 2018
VP, Strategic Services, Digital and UX
MERGE
Led client engagements in digital strategy, marketing and user experience.
- 2013 – 2017
Director of Digital Strategy and Web Marketing
MUSC Health, Medical University of South Carolina
Led digital strategy and web marketing for an academic health system.
- 2008 – 2013
Founder
Longwave Consulting Partners
Web development and digital consulting.
- 2004 – 2008
Software and web marketing
NextChoice, Meetinghouse (Cisco Systems) and Sonic Foundry
Marketing roles at a run of software companies.
- 1998 – 2003
Co-founder
Wunderkind Studios, Portsmouth, NH
Web development and digital agency, built and sold five years later.
- 1996 – 1998
Marketing and communications lead
Vitts, a Cabletron Systems spin-off
Helped write the business plan, then built the marketing and communications function.
- Early career
Management consultant
Winthrop Group, Cambridge, MA
Strategy case studies for Raytheon's Beech Aircraft, Comcast, Northwest Airlines and KKR.
Credentials
PhD, History and Policy
Carnegie Mellon University
4A's Generative AI Certification
Among the program's first cohort, 2024
Areas of expertise
- Agency operations
- Digital strategy
- User experience
- Marketing technology
- Marketing automation
- Analytics
- CRM and CMS implementation
- Multichannel marketing
- Healthcare marketing
- Generative AI
[A SENTENCE OR TWO, IN MARK'S OWN WORDS, ON WHY HE STARTED PENSUM]
Talk with Mark directly.
Two easy ways to start. Neither comes with a pitch deck.
Or reach us directly: mark@pensumllc.com · 412.659.5859