Date September 18, 2025

Alumni Spotlight: Marcus Burke ’17 MPA

By Pete Bilderback

Internationally focused from a young age and growing up outside Washington, D.C., Marcus Burke experienced career growth after earning his Master of Public Affairs (MPA) degree from Brown in 2017 as a mid-career professional.

Marcus Burke, a 2017 graduate of Brown's Master of Public Affairs (MPA) program, is a U.S.-French national currently working as Director of Client Services at Ipsos in Switzerland, one of the world's leading research companies. Coming to Brown as a mid-career professional, Burke leveraged his MPA experience to shift his career trajectory in a more personally fulfilling direction.

Burke credits his interest in public policy and international affairs to his upbringing in Alexandria, Virginia. Growing up a quick metro ride from the nation's capital made him acutely aware of the world beyond his front door. "When you grow up near D.C., you're surrounded by the major conversations happening in policy," he explains. "You become conscious of the impact that political decisions have, not just on the country, but on the whole world."

This international inclination was nurtured from an early age. He learned Spanish in preschool and later French in middle and high school. "My dad was always discussing international politics at the dinner table," Burke recalls. While studying French in high school, the family would often tune into a French-language news station. "It really gave me a different perspective on world events," he says. "Watching a foreign broadcast offered a more balanced and often more complete picture of what was happening globally. And it was always funny to hear my dad trying to speak French along with the newscasters."

A deep and abiding interest in languages and different cultures led Burke to major in Spanish and French at the University of Virginia, where he particularly enjoyed spending his third year studying in Valencia, Spain.

After earning his bachelor's degree, Burke landed what he called his "dream job" with the U.S. Department of State. The opportunity felt like the culmination of his studies. "For many of us who studied foreign affairs, economics, or foreign languages, working at the State Department felt like the ultimate goal," he says.

During his two years at the State Department, Burke was involved in a wide range of critical legal and diplomatic work. At their main office in D.C., he drafted cables to U.S. Embassies for the landmark Supreme Court case Medellin v. Texas. His assignments also took him overseas: he served as a Consular Agent at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing during the 2008 Summer Olympics and earlier that year, acted as a French interpreter for the White House Advance Team in Cotonou, Benin, helping prepare for a U.S. presidential tour of Africa.

“ As a mid-career professional, I appreciated the MPA program's practical focus and its one-year timeline. It felt like the right time to pivot, and Brown's program was the perfect fit to help me shift my career in a more personally fulfilling direction. ”

Marcus Burke Class of 2017 MPA

But despite these incredible experiences, he missed the deeper immersion of living overseas. "I really wanted to spend more time in France," he says. "I was only 23 at the time, and I just said to myself, 'You know what, now is the time to do it.' So I moved to France, and the rest is history." He spent the next eight years in France, working in various positions and became a naturalized French citizen before deciding he wanted to continue his education.

"I felt like something was lacking," Burke admits. "I was working in consulting, and that human dimension I experienced at the State Department was missing. I'd always wanted to go back to school to get an MPA, and it just felt like the right time to do it."

As a mid-career professional, Burke appreciated the MPA program's practical focus and its one-year timeline. He chose Brown, however, because of its track record. "I saw that the first cohort of the MPA sent someone to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) in Paris," he says. "That was where I wanted to work, so that was a major deciding factor in choosing Brown."

After earning his MPA, Burke secured the consultancy he had been hoping for in the Public Governance Directorate at the OECD in 2017. He credits the relationship he developed with the late Richard Boucher, a former Deputy Secretary-General of the OECD and then Watson Senior Fellow. "Richard was instrumental in terms of putting me in touch with people at the OECD," Burke says, noting that Boucher remained a cherished mentor until his passing in June 2025.

Burke later moved on to projects at the World Economic Forum and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development before landing at his current position at Ipsos in Geneva, Switzerland.

Ipsos, a multinational market research firm headquartered in Paris, is one of the world's most-trusted pollsters. "Often, if you read news articles about a survey on what consumers or citizens think about a given topic, look at the fine print and you'll often see the name 'Ipsos,'" he says.

Burke's role brings together his diverse experiences in policy and consulting. "I work primarily in business development for our service lines on corporate reputation and public affairs," he explains, "and I am also the focal point for any topic related to sustainability. This involves helping clients understand public opinion, manage their reputations, and evaluate policies."

He gives a recent example of a project he pitched for a company seeking to evaluate its community programs. "They have programs to help refugees and wanted to know the impact of their efforts on refugees' sense of well-being. How do you measure well-being? What are the indicators? We have frameworks and methodologies that can assess that."

"I absolutely love what I do," Burke concludes, mentioning that in a world where it's increasingly difficult to separate fact from fiction, his work in providing society with accurate, reliable data is more important than ever, especially to help his clients make decisions based on evidence, not just emotion or opinion.

Living in Switzerland also suits Burke, and he notes it's not uncommon for him to run into fellow Watson alumni in Geneva, a city home to the highest number of international organizations in the world. He often spends time with fellow 2017 MPA graduate Sonia Cuesta, who works as an Associate Human Rights Officer in the U.N.'s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. "Sonia and I are good friends," he says. "We hang out often and play padel with our partners, though I have to admit she usually beats me."