Dritan Nesho is a business executive and entrepreneur with experience in corporate strategy, market research, product development, technology, media, and public policy.

Dritan currently serves as Director of Civic Technology and Engagement at Microsoft Corporation. He co-founded and oversees Microsoft Pulse, a real-time audience and consumer research platform, and is involved in the development of Microsoft’s campaign technology services ecosystem. He is also a co-director of the Harvard-Harris Poll, a monthly public policy poll conducted by the Harvard Center for American Political Studies (CAPS) and The Harris Poll.

Dritan was previously Director of Corporate Strategy and Special Projects at Microsoft, where he reported to the Chief Strategy Officer and advised Microsoft’s CEOs on core consumer and business strategy issues. During this time, Dritan helped set up a rapid -response strategy and special projects ‘SWAT team’ aimed at managing immediate, cross-functional, and high-value projects for Microsoft’s senior leadership team. Microsoft’s SWAT team is credited with helping drive a 28% increase in market share for Bing, repositioning Microsoft’s brand through the “Honestly” and “Empowering Us All” campaigns, and the award-winning 2014 Super Bowl ad “Empowering Us All”.

While at Microsoft Dritan orchestrated several competitive campaigns for Windows, Office, and Bing and led numerous research studies focused on consumer, regulatory, privacy, security, and geopolitical issues working in tandem with the president, chief strategy officer, and head of advertising and communications at Microsoft. In the media space, Dritan pioneered a series of product-driven media partnerships for his product, Microsoft Pulse, with leading news organizations including CNN, MSNBC, Telemundo, PBS News, FOX News, and SKY News UK for the company. These partnerships led to regular use the product by tens of millions throughout the 2014 and 2016 U.S. election cycles, the 2016 U.K. elections, as well as the launch of a branded news show with MSNBC titled “Pulse of America.”

Before Microsoft, Dritan served as Vice President and Chief of Staff to the CEO at Penn Schoen Berland, a leading market research, political polling, and strategic consulting firm, and was Chief of Staff to the global CEO of Burson-Marsteller, the public relations and public affairs giant. He helped manage over 80 offices worldwide, 2500 employees, and more than $600M in annual revenues, and was also responsible for helping develop and tracking the execution of the CEO’s global business plan.

Dritan started his career as a political pollster and has extensive international campaign experience. He has conducted and overseen public policy polling and opinion research for political parties in the United States, UK, India, Mexico, Italy, and in Southeastern Europe, led the work of opposition and policy research teams, and assisted with speechwriting and debate preparation.

Dritan is a fellow at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Sciences (2016 –) and lectures on political polling and opinion research at Harvard University (2014-2017) and in 2015 at The George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management. He graduated from Harvard University with honors in Government and Economics. While at Harvard he served as research assistant and writer for the late political thinker, Samuel P. Huntington.