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Peter Marks
"I grew up in a family with strong public service roots."
My grandfather, John, was a community organizer into his nineties.
Several of my cousins worked or currently work as career diplomats in the State Department. My father, Chris, worked on Capitol Hill and my recently passed mother Amy was an independent-minded local organizer. I’m a community organizer at heart who’s had the privilege of using my technical and product skills to empower individuals and strengthen communities. I currently serve as a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow at the General Services Administration, where I lead efforts to keep contact information up to date in order for individuals to receive benefits and important notices.
Before working in public service, I worked at Walmart where I develop their iPhone app. While working at Walmart altered my worldview, I have been able to use the knowledge I gained there to support a cause more aligned with my values of workers rights and wage justice. I soon found myself serving as Head of Product on the Bernie Sanders 2020 presidential campaign, where I led the design and development of the BERN mobile app, considered by some to be the largest relational organizing campaign in history. The experience of working on that campaign was transformative and led me to take on other product positions in the progressive technology ecosystem, and eventually led me to work in the Biden Administration. In working for the federal government, I have found a balance of mission-driven impact of the “campaign world” with the long-term technical planning and scale of the corporate world.
