Raben

Mark
Linton

Principal

San Francisco Bay Area

Mark brings 20+ years of leadership experience in the public affairs arena, helping global companies, advocates, and public officials win on their top causes.

As one of Raben’s leading issue campaign strategists, Mark helped launch the Freedom to Vote Alliance, a business and tech investor coalition in support of voting rights. He advised on the design and seeding of a new national organization that will defend Latino culture and communities nationwide. Mark also helped launch a health equity coalition in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, to strengthen CDC data collection and reporting of COVID impacts on communities of color.

Before joining Raben, Mark was the founder and president of Linton Strategies, LLC, advising Fortune 100 and Big 4 clients on their corporate citizenship strategies and messaging. Mark is also proud to have advised on the design and launch of a national housing watchdog campaign to protect affordable housing programs. Other major clients included the Urban Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Prior to founding his own firm, Mark served President Barack Obama in a variety of capacities for nearly a decade, beginning in then-Senator Obama’s Washington office. He was appointed by the president as the first executive director of the White House Council on Strong Cities, Strong Communities, which helped spark sustainable economic turnarounds in some of America’s most iconic cities, better leveraging over $360 million in public funds and leading to dramatic community improvements.

Mark also served in senior leadership positions at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, including as acting chief of staff for then-HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan.

Mark earned his master’s in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School and a bachelor’s degree in Foreign Languages and International Economics from the University of Kentucky. He and his wife live with their three children and one very bad dog in the Bay Area.