“People have been trying to figure out who I am for a while,” he says smirking. “Some have
definitely found me, but, other than my friends, I’ve stayed pretty private. I’ve wanted it that
way.” It has certainly added to the mystique. His fans love the idea there is a real sales guy out
there parading around as the hero Corporate Bro. It’s a Clark Kent-Superman situation. But despite their best attempts, his true identity has not been revealed – until now. Corporate bro has been referred to as “the modern day Dilbert in video form.” A corporate salesman who 85-thousand people on Instagram tune-in to watch on a weekly bases. With his satirical portrayals of life as a Silicon Valley software salesman, it is only appropriate that the character be named Corporate Bro.
For the last five years Corporate Bro and his team have put out a video nearly every single week. But, while the character has gained notoriety, it’s creator has stayed out of the spotlight. If
you were to “google” Corporate Bro you would find the the two most common searches include:
“What is Corporate Bro’s real name?” and “Where does Corporate Bro work?”
His name is Ross Pomerantz, a Stanford MBA student who still holds a sales job. “I started at
the bottom in sales. Sales development, where you make a ton of cold calls,” he says smiling
and shaking his head. “Toughest job of my life. A lot of my inspiration comes from that. I think
people can feel the authenticity of my videos because I’ve done sales – and still do it.”
It was in 2014, after a two-year stint in minor league baseball, that Pomerantz started working
tech-giant Oracle. That’s where Corporate Bro began.
“I remember walking into the office one day and I had this moment where I thought ‘this place is
ridiculous. Everyone here is such a corporate bro!’ That’s when I started making six-second
videos on the now retired Vine platform.”
After making videos for almost a year, the six-second Vine platform was fading. Pomerantz
began transferring his videos to Instagram where at first he received little traction. The pivotal
moment happened in the first week of 2015. “I woke up one morning and had a personal
message on my Instagram that Grandex Media (Total Frat Move) was writing an article about
my videos. I sort of had a mini-blow-up moment that day.”
Word began to spread and within days he had thousands of followers asking for more. “That’s
when I decided to get serious. I knew I needed a team to deliver content every week.” With no
budget to work with he turned to friends and family. He first brought on his younger brother, Win
Pomerantz, who would play the manager in videos and aid in writing and producing. He also
added his Oracle co-worker Matt MacDonald and Ben Gould, a comedy writer who also worked
in sales at Zenefits.
“I don’t think people realize how much we bootstrap this operation,” said Gould. “Each video
takes about eight hours from writing to editing and it’s all done on nights and weekends. We’ve
been kicked out of workspaces before and had to beg fans to let us shoot in their offices on
weekends.”
Fortunately enough the team has found a more permanent home for shooting their videos, a
small office in San Francisco. Now their biggest issue is coordination, time, and resources.
Pomerantz echoed the same sentiment. “We always need people to help. And it’s funny
because people constantly ask to be in the videos. Problem is they always back out once they
hear we need them to show up at 8am on a Saturday. It’s an all-day thing. Oh yeah, and no one
gets paid.”
Still the team finds a way. They haven’t missed a week in years. Pomerantz now does corporate
stand-up for tech companies on top of the weekly videos. They hire him to motivate and
entertain their sales teams. “It’s been great to get out there in person. While I much prefer video
work, I know it can only help the brand if I do as many things as possible.”
Apparently he is currently working on a far larger project, but is hush-hush on the details. All he
would say is that it’s Corporate Bro in longer form. If you work a corporate job, or know
someone who does, follow Corporate Bro (@Corporate.bro) on his meteoric rise.
