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Jefrey Pollock, 35

President

Global Strategy Group

At age 12, Jefrey Pollock was one of several students from a Philadelphia private school attending a young-leadership conference in Washington, D.C. As an exercise, he penned a mock speech for his congressman, Peter Kostmayer. When he found out weeks later that the speech had been read into the Congressional Record, the thrilled youngster borrowed $5 against his allowance and mailed it off to the congressman.

It was the first of many campaign contributions for the budding political junkie. Mr. Pollock formed a Young Democrats chapter, interned for Rep. Charles Rangel and learned about political polling in the University of Pennsylvania classroom of famed Republican strategist Frank Luntz.

As he set out to build a career, he took to heart one piece of advice from his father, Jay, a pharmacy owner in the Philadelphia area. "No matter what, I was not to work for anyone else," Mr. Pollock recalls his father saying. "I was to work for myself."

He and Jonathan Silvan launched Global Strategy in 1995 in the rent-controlled apartment of Mr. Silvan's recently deceased grandmother. They began by conducting market research and have since broadened their work to include polling and a strategic consulting for business and political clients.

The company now employs 50 people in five cities and grosses nearly $20 million annually. Most recently, the firm advised Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in their winning campaigns. Global Strategy has hung on to its startup culture, however. Mr. Pollock and Mr. Silvan still share an office and shout ideas to each other.

"It's a young and thriving firm," says Jonathan Trichter, a J.P. Morgan Securities banker in public finance.

- Anne Michaud

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