Marc A. Ross
Ambition.
Marc A. Ross helps thought leaders understand where they stand and what to do next — through Intelligence, Community, and Campaign Management.
Founder + Chief Campaign Strategist, Brigadoon
Detroit, MI · Building thought leader ecosystems since 2013
Biography
Founder & Chief Campaign Strategist
Marc A. Ross is the Founder and Chief Campaign Strategist of Brigadoon, a thought leader ecosystem built on three pillars: Intelligence, Community, and Campaign Management. He works with founders, executives, and civic leaders who cannot afford to be reactive in an environment defined by permanent disruption.
His expertise spans tariff policy and supply chain disruption, US–China commercial relations, AI governance, transatlantic policy, national political campaigns, and the political environment around legislative and regulatory transitions. Marc helps leaders understand what is moving geopolitically, what it signals, and what to do about it — turning that understanding into campaigns that hold up in the rooms that matter.
Marc founded Brigadoon in 2013 out of a simple frustration: spending too much time with the same people, thinking the same way. What began as small, PowerPoint-free gatherings has grown into a full ecosystem — intimate dinners, multi-day retreats at venues from Sundance Mountain Resort to private estates in Scotland, a members' community, and a campaign management practice built to turn expertise into influence. All of it operates under the Chatham House Rule: no recordings, no stages, no name tags.
Before building Brigadoon into its current form, Marc served as Communications Director of the US–China Business Council, America's foremost trade association for US companies that trade with or invest in China, and as Communications Director of the Center for AI Policy, which advocated for responsible artificial intelligence policy and addressed the unique risks of frontier AI. He has also served as an adjunct professor at George Washington University, teaching a course on globalization and American politics.
Marc has appeared on Bloomberg, Bloomberg Radio, Fox Business, CGTN, and Associated Press Video, and has been interviewed on and off the record by reporters at the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Reuters, Bloomberg, the Washington Post, the Economist, Politico, and the Times of London, among other leading publications across the US, UK, Europe, and Asia. He writes the Ross Rant for Brigadoon Daily and Brigadoon Weekly.
Marc holds an MBA in global commerce from the Kenan–Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
How Brigadoon Works
Intelligence + Community + Campaign Management
Intelligence
Brigadoon Daily and Brigadoon Weekly newsletters, plus Brigadoon Radio — a running read on the ideas shaping commerce and culture.
Community
Monthly calls, workshops, salon dinners, and multi-day gatherings in Scotland and Utah — brought together through Brigadoon Professional membership.
Campaign Management
Hands-on strategy for thought leaders, led personally by Marc — from the 5-Step Thought Leader Audit through full campaign build and management.
Expertise
Where Marc Focuses
Policy & Geopolitics
Campaign Practice
Startups & Founders
The Proprietary Frameworks
Built for the 5-Step Thought Leader Audit™
Every Brigadoon Campaign Management engagement is built on three proprietary frameworks — each one answering a different question on the way from insight to influence.
SIGNAL™
Reads the external environment — what's moving, what it means, and what deserves a response.
TWIN™
Identifies the audiences that actually need to move, and what will move them.
E-STOCK™
Event, Strategy, Tactics, Organization, Consistency, Know-how — the discipline that turns findings into a working program.
Learn more about the 5-Step Thought Leader Audit™ → brigadoon.live/campaign-management
Speaking
Bring Marc In
Marc speaks to boards, executive teams, and gatherings on the communications and strategic challenges facing thought leaders in a volatile world. He has appeared at Chicago Booth, USC Marshall, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, the Middlebury Institute, and UNC Kenan–Flagler, among others.
- Keynotes, panels, and moderated sessions
- Half- and full-day workshops on the SIGNAL, TWIN, and E-STOCK frameworks
- Off-the-record dinners and convenings under the Chatham House Rule
Affiliations
- Founder + Chief Campaign Strategist, Brigadoon
- Former Adjunct Professor, George Washington University
- Former Communications Director, Center for AI Policy
- Former Communications Director, US–China Business Council
Credentials
- MBA — Kenan–Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- BLS — Bowling Green State University
Be Your
Ambition.