Mark Forscher is an experienced creative leader who loves music, building brands, and the decentralized internet. 🌐
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Mark Forscher lives in Brooklyn and has been designing and growing brands professionally since 2005. As Chief Marketing Officer of Alluvial, Mark works to support the growth and development of Liquid Collective (a trusted and secure liquid staking protocol) and to further the adoption of Ethereum and the decentralized internet.
With over a decade of experience as an independent creative studio owner specializing in servicing early-stage technology startups, and over five years of experience working as the in-house Creative Director for major media brands and an interactive agency in NYC, Mark is a versatile creative leader who is recognized for his expertise in branding, strategy, and design.
Mark has deep experience collaborating with founders to build successful startups. He led marketing and design for Bison Trails, an infrastructure-as-a-service startup in NYC, from the company's seed round to an acquisition by Coinbase in early 2021. The Bison Trails platform managed $30B+ in assets staked across more than 25 blockchain protocols and was widely recognized as the market leader in the professional node operator space.
In his spare time, Mark enjoys cats, dogs, traveling with his family, and actively pursuing creative experiments ranging from onchain collections with AI, an apparel shop for a decentralized protocol, and recording late night music as Lost Waves.
Mark Forscher led team sessions on building culture and effective communication at the Alluvial offsite in Paris, March 2023. Photo by Melissa Nelson.
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Background
Mark studied composition, experimental and world music, and more as a music major at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, graduating with honors before earning an MFA in Design & Technology from Parsons School of Design in Manhattan.
In the aughts, Mark worked at R/GA as a designer on the Nike Basketball account, and then as Creative Director at Code and Theory for the formative years of the interactive agency. He worked at Newsweek as in-house Creative Director before joining ABC News as Creative Director in New York City. In 2011, Mark left the media world to focus full-time on emerging technology startups through Under After, his independent creative studio.
For a decade, Under After specialized in brand and product design, collaborating with early-stage founders to bring their ideas to life. During this time, Mark also served as interim Product Director and Design Lead for several clients, named many companies, and designed the brand identity for a few unicorns. TechCrunch recognized Mark Forscher as a "Verified Brand Expert."
In 2019, Mark joined the leadership team of Bison Trails as Head of Brand & Design. He created the blockchain infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) company's brand identity and designed the first version of the platform with founders Joe Lallouz and Aaron Henshaw. Mark established and led the marketing, content, and product design teams, growing the business until Bison Trails was successfully acquired by Coinbase in early 2021. By November 2021, the Bison Trails platform managed $30B+ in assets staked across more than 25 blockchain protocols.
In March 2022, Mark released the first collection from Seems Unreal, 1000 artworks depicting the liminal space between the dreams of an AI and its human collaborator, on Ethereum as NFTs. He donated a third of the mint's proceeds to non-profits onchain. In 2023, he released two additional Seems Unreal collections onchain and a limited edition coffee table book documenting the collection.
Today, Mark is the CMO of Alluvial, building a secure and trusted liquid staking standard. He lives in Brooklyn, where he tweets semi-regularly, manages an apparel shop, and records music as Lost Waves.
Experience
2021—2022
Design Lead at Coinbase Cloud supporting a team of Product Designers and User Researchers to make it easy for developers to build the future of web3.
2019—2021
Head of Brand & Design at Bison Trails in New York City leading marketing, design, and content strategy.
2017—2018
Interim Product Director and Design Lead for Fatherly, a digital media brand for dads based in NYC.
2009—2011
Creative Director, Digital for ABC News in NYC.
2008—2009
Creative Director, Digital for Newsweek in NYC.
At the Alluvial offsite in Bogota, in October 2022, Mark led a team session on the value of collaboration.
