Mark Pierson

Mark Pierson was appointed to the Board of Directors of the Atlanta Council for International Relations in August, 2021. Mark is also President of Pierson Global, an international business consultancy based in Atlanta, Georgia. Pierson Global specializes in international and technology business development, including economic and investment development, trade mission leadership, and individual company business development.

He began his career with Nortel Networks as a marketing manager for the Transmission Networks Division, which manufactured fiber-optic electronic and digital multiplex products. During this time he was responsible for the interface between Nortel’s Montreal-based manufacturing plant and the U.S.-based sales, marketing, engineering and installation teams. He was the marketing manager for the first congressionally recognized distance learning system in the U.S. that connected four high schools in Oklahoma’s panhandle.

Utilizing the experience from the implementation of Nortel’s distance learning projects, he was asked to be product development manager for Video Conferencing Systems, Inc., a developer of high-end corporate systems used to connect disparate global offices of Fortune 500 companies.

Following VSI, he was appointed Director of International Marketing for Chamber Publications, Bangkok, Thailand, a firm that created handbooks and directories for international chambers of commerce. He maximized sales revenue for all of his projects, including the French, Australian, Canadian, German and Swedish chambers in Hong Kong, the Singapore Australian Business Council, and the Vietnam Business Handbook, which was the first professionally compiled business publication on Vietnam after that country’s acceptance of free trade.

As a member of the Amcham Thailand’s Indochina Markets Committee, he helped formulate policy issues that eventually led to the lifting of the U.S. trade embargo against Vietnam. He was a frequent interviewee on Hong Kong radio stations regarding the business opportunities in Vietnam. He was also an active member of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand.

Upon returning to Atlanta in 1992 he helped start the GlobalFax News Service, now known as GlobalAtlanta, which is the most influential international business media in the Southern U.S., reaching over 15,000 readers weekly. He sold the first corporate-level sponsorships for GlobalFax, and helped with the development of the marketing and positioning strategy of the company as it became a brand name in Atlanta in 1990’s.

He has also been the Atlanta Correspondent for World Trade Magazine and the international columnist for Business to Business Magazine, and has participated in press trips to Russia, Germany, Canada, Israel, Mexico, Brazil and St. Lucia.

From 1997-2002 he was the publisher and editor of the German American Chamber of Commerce of the Southern U.S. Business South magazine where he was responsible for the entire publishing process. This included all advertising sales, article writing, editing and picture captioning. The German American Chamber (www.gaccsouth.com) is the official representative of German Industry and Trade to the eleven states in the Southern U.S.

Mr. Pierson also helped over 50 German companies from various industries meet potential American buyers, partners and distributors in the Southern United States over the past decade. He has also written promotional materials for many German companies in American business English to help them successfully explain their products to potential buyers in the U.S. market.

He has also helped with numerous political, investment and trade delegations from Germany to the Southern U.S., including a delegation of Bavarian call center executives to Orlando and Tampa, and a logistics delegation from Lower Saxony to Atlanta, New Orleans and Memphis.

Mr. Pierson served as moderator for numerous GACC South’s renewable energy conferences as well as GACC’s Public Affairs Chairman.

As a result of the increasing variety of clients requesting services, Pierson Global Group, Inc. (PGG) was formed in 2002 to enable larger projects to be implemented and for international partners to be added as needed.

In 2003 Pierson Global began working with the Province of Newfoundland, Canada, where supported such diverse interests as the EXCITE! Corporation of Grand Falls-Windsor, Atlantic Canada, the Newfoundland Association of Technology Industries, and the Nearshore Atlantic initiative of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. PGG has also been a participant in the Japan-SEUS and the Canada Provinces-SEUS conferences.

Pierson Global also helped arrange meetings for an Olympic-related delegation from British Columbia to Atlanta to investigate opportunities for business cooperation as well as for the Canary Islands during their promotional activities for the 1996 Olympics.

In 2006 he was appointed a board member of the Technology Association of Georgia’s Southeastern Software Association and is currently SSA’s Social Chairman.

In December 2007 Mr. Pierson was invited to participate in the inaugural U.S. Outsourcing Delegation to China and visited six cities to investigate opportunities in the software development and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sectors. He has been to China twelve times and is the Southeast Representative for the International Technology Transfer Network.

From 2009-2012 he was a member of Board of Trustees of the Georgia Council for International Visitors, which organizes the annual Consul Ball. He assisted the Executive Director with communicating with Atlanta’s diplomatic Community.

From 2010-2011 he was the City of Berlin, Germany’s representative in the United States where he promoted Berlin as a location for U.S. technology and medical device companies. He was the U.S. Managing Director of a Berlin-based 3D Printer Company for several years.

In 2016 he was elected President of the Georgia Indo-American Chamber of Commerce for two years, and currently serves on GIACC’s Corporate Advisory Board.

He has traveled extensively globally and was a volunteer with Operation Crossroads Africa in Kenya where he helped build a health center in a remote area. He also taught math and English to U.S. sailors while deployed as a civilian instructor on five Navy ships from 1980-1983, during which time he received a Commendation from the Captain of the U.S.S. Harry E. Yarnell for five months of teaching service in the Indian Ocean during the Iran hostage crisis.