About Dan Soschin
From Silicon Valley to Stromstad, Sweden, and from Toronto to Tampa, Dan Soschin writes and speaks about marketing and technology. He covers branding in a digital economy, social media, analytics, customer service, and open source software. Dan’s posts will have you agreeing, disagreeing, and agreeing to disagree.
When not globe-trotting to spread the gospel of branding, Dan is a full-time contributor to the WordPress project sponsored by Automattic. Basically, what that means is that Dan is sponsored to grow the reach of WordPress, the open source software that powers nearly half of all websites globally.
Dan’s background is in technology where he dabbled in the world of database and enterprise software start-ups for a decade before jumping into e-learning.
Dan currently resides in Tampa, Florida, with his lovely wife (owner of The Pilates Krewe), amazingly witty son, adorable daughter, and a Lionel train layout that spans 70 years of collecting.
Dan has traveled throughout the U.S. and abroad speaking at conferences providing interactive, educational, and entertaining presentations to large audiences as a keynote speaker, as well as leading more intimate workshops and sessions with the goal of having his participants walk away with tangible action items they can apply to their work the very next day.
The Early Years
Dan attended the top-ranked Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJHSST) in Alexandria, Virginia. While at TJHSST, Dan served as Student Government President, dabbled in microelectronics, and did his best to pretend he was a gymnast.
Dan is a graduate of the University of Virginia, where he attended the McIntire School of Commerce with a focus in Management Information Systems and Management. More notably, Dan served as the Cavalier Mascot where he earned a varsity letter and National Cheerleading Association All-American award. For his senior year at UVa, Dan was awarded a room “on the lawn” by his peers, often considered UVa’s highest student honor. During that same year, Dan received a scholarship for community service and achievement and served as an officer for his fraternity, AEPi.
Professional Life
After college, Dan began his career in technology, big data, and analytics by working at MicroStrategy, a business intelligence software firm in the DC Metro region. Dan contributed to a number of projects during his tenure, including building one of the largest data warehouses of the day, helping establish the network operations center (and 24/7 monitoring), as well as some internal business intelligence projects to support reporting and billing.
After MicroStrategy, Dan traveled to San Francisco for a technology start-up, Data Advantage Group.
After four years, Dan returned to the DC Metro to work with a variety of start-ups in the enterprise software space over the course of five years.
Deciding to leverage his technical skills and passion for education, Dan joined American Public University System where he was instrumental in growing the university from 60,000 to more than 100,000+ and then at Ultimate Medical Academy in Tampa, FL, growing the student body from under 7,000 to more than 15,000.
After growing the marketing and public relations team from 8 to 30, Dan left UMA in good hands to serve as CMO for a handful of PE-backed startups. As the pandemic looks for closure, Dan returned to his tech roots by taking a role in the WordPress project.
