Founders

Stephen Wendel
Stephen directs the firms's scientific and quantitative efforts. He is a modeling and simulation expert who is a pioneer in the application of agent-based modeling and simulation to political and advocacy campaigns. His experience, and training, has focused on political science, econometrics, social network analysis, computational laboratory analysis, game theory, and geographic information system (GIS) technologies.

From 2005 to 2007, he served as the research manager for Dr. Dibble's Computational Laboratories research team at the University of Maryland. He conducted research into the risk of pandemic influenza and optimization of intervention techniques for the National Institutes of Health, and was the lead programmer for the GeoGraphs simulation platform employed in this project during this period. During his tenure with Dr. Dibble, Stephen developed a new agent-based modeling technique for more efficient execution and a smaller memory footprint, facilitating simulations with millions of agents (Wendel and Dibble 2007). He also developed a suite of statistical tools for analysis of simulation output, for processing simulation input, and for general data exploration and verification.

In prior professional positions, Stephen worked as a software engineer for Pixar Animation Studios and co-founded a San Francisco Bay Area software consulting company. He has conducted econometric analyses of potential free trade agreements for USAID and the Indonesian government, and led the assessment of Cape Town, South Africa's "Digital Divide" as a project manager of the non-governmental organization Bridges.org.

Stephen holds a bachelor's degree in interdisciplinary studies from the University of California at Berkeley, Phi Beta Kappa, where he studied social movements and completed his thesis on the Indonesian revolution of 1998. He holds a masters degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, where he received dual distinction for his studies in international relations and economics. He is completing a PhD at the University of Maryland in political science, where his research focuses on the application of computational modeling to the dynamics of political mobilization.

Stephen has been an activist for progressive causes throughout his life, and was trained as a community organizer in Minnesota.

Christopher Hertz
A seasoned strategist, Christopher's experience spans multiple disciplines and industries. Christopher has more than a decade of experience working with non-profits, political organizations and businesses on their outreach efforts, with a focus on online strategy and execution. His professional and educational background includes strategy, economics, computer science, anthropology, marketing, operations and finance. In addition to his role as a principal at Progressive Clarity, Christopher is the CEO of New Signature—a 20-person consultancy based in Washington, D.C.

Christopher has a diverse professional background that has touched practically every industry directly or through his consulting experiences. Earlier in his career, Christopher helped launch The Federal Paper and played a key role in positioning this semi-monthly newspaper and determining its editorial focus—the people, politics and business of the Executive Branch of the federal government. As an associate publisher at The Federal Paper, Christopher was a member of the executive management team. Before entering the world of publishing, Christopher was the CEO and co-founder of Evolving Data Corporation (EDC)—an information retrieval company that provided researchers with the ability to access and analyze a centralized clearinghouse of time series socio-economic data from the U.S. government and various non-governmental organizations. Before co-founding EDC, he held the position of vice president, technology for AllHerb.com-a vitamins and supplements e-tailer. He started his career at WestLake Consulting Group, a boutique consultancy focused on design and development of Internet-based systems, as a senior consultant before becoming the director of business development. Christopher has also provided strategic consultation to Georgetown University's Center for Drug Development Science and NDA Partners—a development partner to biopharmaceutical investors and companies.

Christopher holds a master's degree in business administration from Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management and a dual bachelor's degree in information management and technology and anthropology from Syracuse University. While at MIT Sloan, Christopher was co-president of the Graduate Management Society, co-founded the MIT Sloan student newspaper and was a teaching assistant to Professor Jesper Sorensen's Strategic Management course.