Marc A. Ross | Founder @ Brigadoon

Marc A. Ross has spent his career in the space between what's happening in the world and what it means for the people running businesses and governments inside it.

He is the founder of Brigadoon, a private network of founders, investors, and civic leaders who shape commerce and culture. Brigadoon exists because the best conversations in the world aren't happening at conferences. It runs on three things: intelligence — a newsletter and expert calls that connect what's moving beyond the headlines; connections — a curated network of people who think across disciplines; and gatherings — a winter camp in Utah, a remote week in Scotland, and salon dinners in between.

That expertise is harder to build than it sounds. Ross's government relations work spans global climate policy, national energy strategy, intellectual property, technology antitrust, artificial intelligence governance, the NATO 50th Anniversary Summit, and US-China commercial relations — a breadth that covers policy, commerce, and great-power competition in ways most advisors can only approximate from a single direction.

He served as Communications Director of the US-China Business Council, America's foremost trade association for companies trading with or investing in China, and as Communications Director of the Center for AI Policy, which addressed the unique risks of frontier AI at a moment when most institutions were still learning to spell it. He has worked with C-suite executives, board members, and senior trade association leadership on key messaging, government testimony, media strategy, and CEO thought leadership — with global outlets spanning the US, Canada, the UK, Europe, and Asia.

Ross has been an adjunct professor at George Washington University, teaching globalization and American politics, and has spoken at Wisconsin's School of Business, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School, the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, USC's Marshall School of Business, and others. He holds an MBA with a focus on global commerce from UNC's Kenan-Flagler Business School, and writes on global strategy as an opinion contributor to The Hill and PR Week.

Brigadoon is what happens when someone with that background asks a different question.

Not "what do executives need to know?" — but "what would happen if you put the right people in a room, removed every incentive to perform, and just let them think out loud?"

Ross founded Brigadoon in 2013, after years of attending conferences and leaving with nothing he couldn't have found in a good book. It began as a gathering. It has become something harder to name — a network built on curiosity rather than transaction, a room where the intelligence that flows between people turns out to be more useful than anything on the agenda.

He curates every Brigadoon gathering personally — because these are the kinds of gatherings he wishes he'd been invited to more often.

Know what's next.