Mark's Story

 

Mark Herr provides strategic communications advice and support to prominent companies and public figures who find themselves engaged in high profile litigation, labor disputes and other public controversies. A former trial lawyer, regulator, reporter, and senior corporate communications executive, Mark provides a sophisticated understanding of the unique junction of the court of law and the court of public opinion.

 

Before founding his own boutique communications firm in 2020, Mark led or helped lead the communications efforts of three iconic financial services companies, Merrill Lynch, AIG, and SAC Capital/Point72 Asset Management. He helped devise their communications strategies, built their brands and sub-brands, and shaped their responses to some of the highest profile legal and reputational crises of the last two decades in the financial world.  

 

Earlier in his career, Mark was a civil litigator in New Jersey and then served as the Director and Assistant Attorney General in Charge of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs, the state’s primary civil litigation agency. While leading Consumer Affairs as a member of Gov. Christie Whitman’s Administration, Mark spearheaded pioneering litigation in telecom, energy, Internet, and securities fraud cases.

 

At Merrill Lynch, Mark created and executed the public policy, regulatory, and legal communications strategies as the company dealt with the turn of the century Tech-Wreck research crisis, Enron, and Auction Rate Securities litigations, as well as other legal, regulatory, and public policy issues the company faced, including the Martha Stewart prosecution.

 

Joining AIG in the heart of the 2008 financial crisis, Mark worked on AIG’s restructuring communications team before being named head of AIG’s Media Relations as the company navigated being the poster child for the crisis. Working closely with CEO Bob Benmosche and senior company litigators, Mark devised the responses to the company’s fall from grace and was a key architect of its reputational comeback while serving as its chief spokesperson.

 

Among the high-profile cases during his tenure at AIG, Mark led the company’s communications strategy in its pension litigation against former CEO Hank Greenberg, shareholder suits against AIG, and sundry coverage disputes. He was the architect of the company’s public responses to Congressional inquiries and regulatory scrutiny regarding the government bailout of the company.

 

Hired by Steve Cohen and SAC Capital to create and build the firm’s global communications function, Mark served as Managing Director and Head of Global Communications. As a member of the firm’s management team, he used his expertise in crisis communications and media relations to design the response to SAC’s federal indictment and the SEC administrative action brought against Mr. Cohen.

 

He devised the firm’s reputational comeback strategy that took SAC from being viewed then by many as a pariah after its 2013 federal guilty plea to a rebranded firm, Point72 Asset Management, that enjoyed a 65%+ percent approval when he retired in 2020.

 

During his years working as a senior advisor to Mr. Cohen, Mark also built the brands for Mr. Cohen’s VC firm, Point72 Ventures, his industry-unique analyst training vehicle, Point72 Academy, and his philanthropic veterans mental health treatment program, Cohen Veterans Network.  In his last year at Point72, among the things Mark did was lead the communications effort for Mr. Cohen’s purchase of the New York Mets.

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After Mark retired from Point72 in 2020, Mr. Cohen asked Mark to continue to advise on Mets-related communications. Since then, Mark’s other clients have included financial services, sports, entertainment, fintech, and biotech companies, as well as high-profile ultra-wealthy business leaders who find themselves in reputationally challenging episodes.  Among Mark’s work, he advises Tesla on labor-related issues and worked on union issues when he advised Activision’s CEO Bobby Kotick. 

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During his pre-Wall Street career, Mark was also a speechwriter for Gov. Thomas H. Kean and wrote the 1988 Keynote Address to the Republican National Convention, before his career as a trial lawyer. He also served as the Executive Director of the New Jersey State Republican Party before returning to his private legal practice. 

 

Earlier in his career, Mark was the New Jersey Statehouse bureau chief for United Press International, while also covering the Governor, Legislature, New Jersey Supreme Court, the Miss America Pageant, and the trial of New Jersey’s most notorious serial killer, among other major news stories.  He reported on behalf of the Bergen Record and before that was a correspondent for the Atlanta Journal, covering politics, political corruption, and local politics in Savannah. He also worked in radio and TV in Columbus and Savannah, Georgia. 

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Mark’s background gives him a unique 360-degree understanding of what it means to be in the blinding spotlight of public opinion, especially under the duress of litigation and regulatory controversies. His time as a regulator and in politics gives him a strong public policy background. His very early days as a member of two unions and shop steward of one gives him insights into the labor world from the perspective of union members, while his years working closely with senior C-suite executives gives him the poise and presence to deal with CEOs and other senior executives. Mark’s years as a litigator and regulator help him mediate between the legal world and the world inhabited by founders, executives, and other prominent figures.  

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Few communications professionals have Mark’s background and expertise, fewer still have been in the thick of as many high stakes matters and issues involving as many high-profile companies as he has. He has earned the trust of some of the most demanding executives and personalities in the world and repaid that trust by providing advice and guidance that helped those leaders achieve their goals and extricate them from unpleasant circumstances. 

 

Mark earned his BA from Colgate University cum laude and with Honors in History, his Master’s Degree from Columbia University, and his JD from the Seton Hall University School of Law, where he was a member of the Constitutional Law Journal.