Educated at the University of Virginia and the City University of New York , Marcus Whitney served in his early career as a content programmer for national health learning systems leader HealthStream and a systems architect for Anode, a marketing and branding firm specializing in visual information design and interactive media.

For Nashville-based Firesign, Marcus oversaw design, testing and installation of the server for the company’s signature offering, dynamic digital signage that allows scheduled messaging and streaming of real-time data. Debuted at the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, the platform performed with zero downtime.

Recruited in September, 2003 to email marketing firm Emma, Marcus oversaw the redevelopment of a prototype into a scalable application, using Enterprise LAMP to build a framework similar to Ruby on Rails two years before RoR emerged. To accommodate Emma’s growing client base, which expanded from 250 clients to 10,000 during his four year tenure, Marcus built a mailer capable of sending one million emails per hour and supervised the addition of more than 100 features to the user interface. He rose to partner at Emma in 2004.

Leaving Emma in September, 2007, Marcus established Remarkable Wit, a business technology strategy firm, to “build more Emmas”—that is, companies that offer users friendly, intuitive interfaces that link behind the scenes to industrial strength platforms that quietly and efficiently generate income.

Remarkable Wit quickly gained the interest of two high potential companies that were a fit for the firm’s venture technology model.

In addition to his role as CEO of Remarkable Wit, Marcus serves as CTO of Moontoast, LLC (http://www.moontoast.com/) and American Songspace, LLC (http://www.americansongspace.com/ ).

Recognized as an Enterprise LAMP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAMP_(software_bundle) thought leader, Marcus has presented at PHP::Works in Toronto and contributed a column to International PHP magazine (now PHPinfo http://itrepublic.com/phpinfo/). For his popular Pro:PHP Podcast, which rose to a Top 100 slot among podcasts on iTunes, he interviewed leading open source champions, including Andi Gutmans, CTO of Zend, and Rod Smith, Vice President of Emerging Technologies at IBM.

Locally, Marcus revived the Nashville PHP Users Group and with colleague Dave Delaney established Nashville’s first BarCamp, a user-generated conference with open, participatory workshop-events for enthusiasts and professionals in design, technology and innovation, new media, digital music and entrepreneurship. The pair also organized PodCamp, an “unconference” for new media enthusiasts and professionals including bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers and social networkers.