Mark O'Toole

Managing Director, PR & Content Marketing / E-mail

Although Mark regularly creates meaningful, sustained relationships for clients, secures media coverage that builds no matter how long a client engages with HB, and consumes every type of media every single day, he knows PR is not about traditional media anymore. For Mark, PR has never been about media, but rather about helping clients meet business goals. By constantly applying his marketing mentality to solving business challenges, Mark created a platform that catapults client campaigns to new levels.

Mark’s teams take a thorough approach to advising clients — sure, that’s an old fashioned concept, but it works. If a client asks about an emerging medium like social media, he can recommend what works because he’s immersed in it himself. Content marketing, editorial calendars, writing press releases for search engines, exploring new technologies—these are all part of PR, and Mark makes sure HB isn’t just giving these concepts “flavor of the week” treatment. He lives in clients’ shoes to make sure they are always on the right path.

Mark applies the same energy to his non-profit affiliations. He is vice-chair of the board of the iconic Freedom Trail Foundation, keeps up with the entrepreneurial community as a regular MITX Up coach, stays true to his TV roots as a governor for the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, ensures HB knows more about search than other firms by serving as a founding Working Group member for SEMPO Boston, and ties it all together as a Connector for Boston World Partnerships to drive business into our region.

In his free time, Mark is hanging out with his kids or competing with them on the Wii or PS3. He still plays basketball (even though his wife thought he’d be done 20 years ago). Mark applies the same strategic determination that he brings to clients to his two-time league champ fantasy baseball team.

Mark grew up destined for PR. He became a regular reader of the Globe, Herald and New York Times at age 11. He went to one of the country’s best communications schools, Emerson College. He worked in TV for a dozen years. He has 9,000 songs on his iPod. And he’s a multi-platform professional now, running Facebook pages/groups, Twitter feeds, LinkedIn groups and interactive applications for clients and himself.