Parscale Digital, a San Antonio-based digital marketing firm best known for its namesake and former owner Brad Parscale, President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign chairman, is now being run by a former executive at Cambridge Analytica.
Cambridge Analytica, the now defunct data analysis company known for working on President Trump’s 2016 campaign, declared bankruptcy in 2018 after news broke that data from more than 80 million Facebook users was shared with it.
Matt Oczkowski was head of product for Cambridge Analytica before forming Data Propria in San Antonio with at least three other Cambridge Analytica alums, including its chief data scientist, David Wilkinson.
Oczkowski will take on the dual role running Parscale and Data Propria, which are both owned by CloudCommerce.
Brad Parscale sits on the board of parent company Cloud Commerce.
CloudCommerce President Andrew Van Noy announced the change Jan. 25. in an email obtained by TPR.
“Matt will continue to lead the Data Propria team and will now focus on streamlining the offerings and building out the teams between the two brands,” he said.
According to the email from Van Noy, Oczkowski will serve in an interim capacity.
Parscale Digital has been without a leader since former president Adam Brecht left the position in June 2018 after just a few months.
Data Propria reportedly assisted the Republican National Committee with midterm race polling last year and is working on Trump’s 2020 campaign.
Brad Parscale sold his half of Giles Parscale, which would become Parscale Digital, in August 2017. At the time he took $9 million in CloudCommerce stock and a seat on the board for his company assets.
Representatives of CloudCommerce didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment.
According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Brad Parscale was invoiced more than $729,000 by Parscale Digital for work done for the campaign manager’s politically oriented consulting firm, Florida-based Parscale Strategy LLC.
Donald J. Trump For President, Inc paid Parscale Strategy LLC more than $3.4 million in 2018 for digital consulting and online advertising, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Transparency Note: Giles Design Bureau, a CloudCommerce subsidiary, contributes to TPR's Technology and Entrepreneurship Desk
Paul Flahive can be reached via email Paul@tpr.org or on Twitter @paulflahive.
