About Ben

Ben Austin has a deep record of accomplishment in press and public relations as well as digital marketing.

Ben has led the public relations efforts at two Bay Area startup software companies, a New York City Internet software company, one incubator, and two New York City non-profits.  He has been quoted in scores of publications, including the New York Times, Wall St. Journal, Forbes, Fortune, AP, and Reuters.  His background includes strategic communications, crisis communications, and digital communications.

At the 2008 inaugural World Science Festival, Ben launched a first-time festival comprised of forty-four events over five days in New York City. The festival sold out all of its tickets and earned a documented attendance of 120,000. It garnered nearly a billion media impressions for its sponsors and was called "a new cultural institution" by the New York Times.  At the New York City Department of Education, Ben served as the marketing and communications lead for Caroline Kennedy in her efforts to raise private funds for the public schools.

Ben’s experience in digital marketing, beginning in 1988, predates the mass adoption of the Internet.  Ben ran marketing for Opcode Systems, the first company to create music technology products for the Macintosh computer.  A musician himself, Ben earned technical album credits with Branford Marsalis, Joe Jackson, and Ryuichi Sakamoto.  He was tapped by Apple to coordinate the artist interviews at Woodstock '94, creating media at the festival to run on the stageside Jumbotron screens between acts. Opcode Systems was sold to Gibson Guitar Corp. in 1998.

Ben then led marketing at New York City-based Comet Systems.  Under Ben's tenure, Comet Systems built a userbase of 30 million unique users and advanced into Nielsen's top 25 global Internet properties without any advertising expenditure.  Opcode also won AdWeek's coveted "Best Marketing Technology" award.  Ben was featured in Business 2.0 and has spoken at the AdTech and Viral Marketing trade shows about these experiences. Comet Systems was sold for a profit in 2004. 

Ben has since developed digital marketing platforms for Columbia University, the Alumni Association of the Bronx High School of Science, Amphion Innovations, and BMP Sunstone Corp. (sold in 2011 to Sanofi Aventis for $520M).

Ben has degrees in Chemistry and Public Policy, with honors, from Stanford University.

Columbia Uniersity World Science Festival Amphion Bronx High School of Science BMP Sunstone Comet Systems History of Vaccines Opcode Systems