Employee Spotlight: Peter Greenberger, Vice President of Business Development
Peter Greenberger is the Vice President of Business Development at Applecart. Peter began at Applecart nearly five years ago as the first person in a business development role at the company. Peter now leads a growing team that works with Fortune 500 companies, major trade associations and nonprofits, and dozens of leading agency partners.
Tell us about what you did prior to joining Applecart:
I have worked at the intersection of politics, technology and media throughout my career. I started working on political campaigns after college, and after the Clinton/Gore re-election in 1996, I had the opportunity to work in the White House Office of Legislative Affairs. A few years after leaving The White House, I ran a U.S. Senate race in Oklahoma and we realized that every time our opponent said something controversial, we could email the comment to our email list and like clockwork, we would raise seven to ten thousand dollars. These were still the early days of online fundraising but it was obvious that it was going to change the game. We ended up not winning that race - electing statewide Democrats in Oklahoma is not easy - but the learning that I took away was the internet was dramatically changing the way that politics was conducted, both in how you run campaigns and how you communicate with people. It was that campaign in Oklahoma that showed me what was possible. From that experience, I went to a company called New Media Strategies, which was a pioneer in online social listening and engagement. From there, I jumped to Google, then Twitter, starting and leading political sales for both companies. Then, after a stint as publisher of The Hill, I made my way to Applecart.
Why did you decide to join Applecart?
I decided to join Applecart because of the product and the people. From my work at Google and Twitter, I knew that this is the solution that public affairs and government relations clients are looking for: how to reach the small handful of people who are most important to your issue or company. Twitter (X) is such a personal, intimate platform where you can see the person who you're trying to reach is on the platform and communicating in real time to their followers. Clients would regularly ask us how to reach specific elected officials or other specific stakeholders who were on Twitter. However, just as on any other large internet platform, you aren’t able to run ads to one person, so the solutions that we would offer were always pretty unsatisfactory. It took Applecart to find a way to do that in a really effective, but also cost efficient way. When I met with our Co-Founders Matt and Sacha and learned about the technology, I knew immediately I could sell this product in D.C. because this is what everybody was looking for. Additionally, what struck me about Applecart was that it was not all limited to politics, public affairs, or government relations, that this technology could be used in investor relations, employee relations, corporate reputation campaigns, crisis campaigns, and really any situation where any organization is trying to reach a small number of people with undue influence on the outcome of an event. That represented a massive opportunity, which by itself is exciting, but also was an opportunity for me to leverage my experience, all the work I've done in public affairs and government relations in D.C., but to also grow and learn about other use cases like investor relations, financial communications, and corporate advisory work.
When I started at Applecart nearly five years ago, most conversations started with me, most conversations started with me having to explain what we were and why it's called Applecart and what we do. Now, it's very rare that you have a conversation with someone in D.C. or NY who's not pretty familiar with Applecart, if not already using us through an agency or in a previous job. So that's been really gratifying to see how we've grown first in Washington and since in other markets.
What is your favorite Applecart use-case?
My go-to use case for the past few years has been former Senator Joe Manchin. For a while he was always the answer – making sure you put your best message in front of Senator Manchin, his staff, advisors, et al, was all that mattered in U.S. politics.
But a more colorful example is from a few years ago when an agency partner once approached us to help them with their client’s efforts to be named the new host of Jeopardy!
What should people outside of Applecart know about Applecart?
Applecart is changing the way organizations communicate with and engage their most important stakeholders. This has always been a critical need for large companies and other organizations, but it’s even more important today in an ever-more fragmented media landscape and the rise of alt-media sources. Getting a great story placed in a prominent news outlet no longer guarantees that the most important people will see it. Applecart can make sure the right people, and those close to them, will see your best messaging wherever they go online to get their news and information.
We pioneered this new space of decision maker marketing and we are just getting started!
Give us your best fun fact:
I met my wife on the Gore 2000 presidential campaign in New Hampshire. We were one of 4 couples to get married from the NH staff of about 40 people. Thank you, Al!
