Meet the former Facebook CMO who's leading Mike Bloomberg's Hawkfish, the best-connected tech and data firm in politics

• Mike Bloomberg started Hawkfish, data-driven startup, in 2019 to help the Democratic Party compete with Republicans across the country.
• The firm gained attention when the former New York City mayor announced his candidacy, and its primary goal is to elect Bloomberg.
• Business Insider spoke to several Hawkfish employees and advisors, who provided a picture of the organization now run by former Facebook CMO Gary Briggs.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

In 2019, before former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg entered the presidential fray, he quietly started a data-based firm called Hawkfish to help the Democratic Party expand its digital operations and win elections across the country.

Hawkfish now has one client: Bloomberg. The firm handles his campaign's social media presence, including its now-infamous memes and the bizarre tweets about meatballs and tattoos that turned heads during the January Democratic debate in Iowa.

Since its launch, Hawkfish has made several big-name hires, most prominently that of former Facebook CMO Gary Briggs.

According to Business Insider's interviews with several current employees and advisors, he steers Hawkfish with the help of several other tech and advertising executives, including:

• Former Foursquare CEO Jeff Glueck
• Tim Castree, former North American CEO at WPP's ad-buying network GroupM
• Bryson Gordon, ex-head of advanced advertising at Viacom
• Veterans of top tech companies including Facebook, Google, and Snapchat

People described Briggs as smart, calm, articulate, open to new ideas, and known for getting directly involved in the creative development process.

Since joining Bloomberg's operation, however, he's flown under the radar and shunned press coverage, along with the rest of the agency, and has taken a hands-off management approach.

For more on Hawkfish and its leader Gary Briggs, read the full story on BI Prime:

Bloomberg has already spent $400 million on political advertising. Inside the secretive agency that just popped up to help manage all that money, which is run by Facebook's former CMO