Steven M. Stroum is an entrepreneur, publicity strategist, and author who has spent more than five decades helping businesses grow and helping people redefine what success really means.
Steve grew up in Newton, Massachusetts and served in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam era, received a medical discharge with a service-connected disability and returned to Northeastern University where he graduated with honors. In 1976, he founded Venmark International, a publicity and marketing firm that has helped thousands of companies introduce new products and ideas to the marketplace.
Over the years he has served on the Massachusetts Small Business Task Force and was appointed a Small Business Advisor to the Governor of Massachusetts. He was also selected as a member of the Norbert Wiener Forum at Tufts University, which studied the impact of technology on society, and by the International Rotary Foundation to tour South Korea as an Ambassador for six weeks.
Some of Steve’s most important lessons came from questioning his own success. After achieving everything he thought he wanted at a remarkably young age, he found himself unexpectedly depressed. Understanding why required him to examine whose expectations he had been trying to fulfill and what he actually wanted from life. Steve gradually reshaped his priorities and transformed the business, finding greater profitability and personal fulfillment along the way.
Steve is the author of Success and Self-Discovery: An Entrepreneur's Memoir of Growth and Transformation and Publicity, Persuasion & Life, a collection of 100 essays drawn from fifty years of experience in business and life, which was published in September 2026.
His books combine practical business wisdom with honest reflections on resilience, character, purpose, and personal growth. Whether he's writing about entrepreneurship, persuasion, leadership, or life's unexpected challenges, his goal is the same: to offer readers ideas they can apply immediately and lessons that endure long after they’ve read the final pages.
