Scott Kauffman is the former Chairman and CEO of MDC Partners, the publicly-traded global advertising agency holding company that was purchased by The Stagwell Group (NASDAQ:STGW). After a celebrated career in media and publishing, and a successful track record of creating growth in Silicon Valley, Kauffman joined the MDC Partners Board of Directors in 2006 to fuel the company’s momentum and growth. In July 2015, he was named Chairman and CEO, and served in that capacity until December 31, 2018.As early as 1992, Ad Age named Kauffman one of the top 100 marketers in the country, and in 1996, named him one of 20 “Digital Media Masters.” Kauffman was recognized among the WSJ’s “Advertising Industry Executives to Watch” in 2016 and 2017, and he was named among Adweek’s 2017 “Power Players.”Amassing a unique background as a media, tech and Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Kauffman fostered a culture of collaboration and diversity at MDC, while driving global expansion through strategic, cost-effective acquisitions. Previously, he served as Co-Founder, President & CEO of New Engineering University, an education services company. Before that, he was President & CEO of Geeknet (NASDAQ:GKNT), which he joined shortly after Yahoo! acquired BlueLithium, where he served as President & COO.Kauffman has also served as President & CEO of several early-stage Internet ventures, including Zinio, MusicNow, Coremetrics and eCoverage. In 1997, Kleiner Perkins recruited him to Silicon Valley to become President & CEO of AdKnowledge, which he filed to take public before negotiating its sale to CMGI in 1999.Prior to Silicon Valley, Kauffman was VP & GM of online services for CompuServe, and a presenting member for one of the Internet industry’s first IPOs, led by Goldman Sachs. Kauffman also spent seven years at Time Warner as a member of the founding team of Entertainment Weekly, and then as VP Business Development for Time Warner Interactive, following five years at Newsweek as a publisher and GM of Newsweek’s Education Division.In his current volunteer role as Chairman of The ALS Association, Kauffman presides over the only national nonprofit organization fighting ALS on every front, by leading the way in research, care services, public education, public policy and fundraising.Kauffman holds an A.B. in English from Vassar College and an MBA in marketing from NYU's Stern School of Business.