About Us
Our Founders
Jonathan Stack is a multiple Emmy Award-winning and two-time Academy Award® nominated documentary filmmaker. During his career Jonathan has written, produced and directed over 25 films and 50 television programs including THE FARM: LIFE INSIDE ANGOLA PRISON, which was honored with the Sundance Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize. His films have been distributed through HBO, BBC, A&E, Channel Four, the Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, and many others in 20 countries.
Mara-Michelle Batlin is a co-founder and producer at Highest Common Denominator Media Group. She worked for over 2 decades as an executive, consultant and trainer in communications and advocacy for think tanks and NGOs in developing countries, helping to frame issues, develop communications strategies, and interface with critical constituencies for policy reform initiatives. She served as the Executive Director of Hernando deSoto’s Instituto Libertad y Democracia in Lima, Peru and extensively as an advisor to the Egyptian Center for Economic Studies in Cairo.
She is co-founder and president of NGOAlliance, whose mission is to create the tools and incentives for transparency and accountability in international NGOs. She previously spent 10 years as an executive in the financial services industry. She has a B.A. in economics from Mills College, where she serves on the Board of Trustees. She studied at the London School of Economics and the Naval Postgraduate School, and received a MA in International Policy and Economic Development from the Monterey Institute for International Studies.
David B. Deniger is the Chairman and majority owner of Hyphen Solutions, the creator and operator of the largest supply chain network today, serving 9 of the top 20 residential homebuilders and their over 10,000 subcontractors and suppliers with scheduling, procurement and collaboration.
Mr. Deniger’s background includes leading a number of real estate investment and development strategies with institutional investors, high net worth families and major capital providers including General Electric Corporation where he served as founder and CEO of GE Capital Reality Group in 1989. Subsequently, Mr. Deniger served as the general partner in a series of discretionary private equity funds with Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst and Olympus Partners, where he has served as the CEO and General Partner. Combined equity under management exceeded $25 billion.
Until 2000, Mr. Deniger was a minority owner and Board member of the Dallas Stars Hockey Club (NHL Dallas Franchise) and the Texas Rangers Baseball Club (MLB Dallas franchise). He was also a minority owner and on the development board of the American Airlines Arena, home of the Dallas Stars and the Dallas Mavericks.
In addition to serving as Founder, Executive Producer and Photographer at Highest Common Denominator Media Group, Mr. Deniger is on the Board of Directors of the Naval Postgraduate School Foundation, is an adjunct professor at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, a Member of the Board of Directors of the University of Texas Press Foundation, and Chairman of the Board and General Partner, Calistoga Ranch, an Auberge Resort in Napa, California.
Mr. Deniger received his Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Texas at Austin in 1968. He is married and has two children and five grandchildren.
Our Story
In an increasingly competitive market for news and entertainment, the strategy of the mainstream media has been to broaden its commercial audience to the lowest common denominator, by defining and amplifying our differences, preying upon our fears and anxieties, and numbing us to violence and mediocrity as we are collectively dumbed-down and agitated. The effects of such divisive imagery are pervasive throughout the worlds’ cultures. Highest Common Denominator Media Group is convinced that a growing market for more enlightened, smarter media exists. We believe that society is calling out for stories that define us not as enemies but as humans, that celebrate our universal sacred values – those values that unite all of humanity - and that given the increasingly precarious nature of humanity’s relationships to each other and to our planet, this market will grow. We believe that good storytelling, like art through the ages, can speak to the highest common denominator throughout humanity - those attributes that unite us all - and it is our mission to prove it is so.
Highest Common Denominator Media Group leverages the global reach of its principals and of the electronic media, and its creative and compelling storytelling and filmmaking capabilities to identify, dramatize and distribute stories of real people the world over whose stories illuminate our highest common denominator - the sacred values that we share across nations, cultures, and tribes: our love for our children and families; our longing for liberty; our desire to worship our god; and our innate instinct for what is just and fair. We experiment with new means of storytelling, creating interactive programs that allow the audience to participate in and learn from the story. Unlike media of the past, people today don’t “watch” their computers, nor “read” their screens, so much as reach out and interact, communicating across time and space, seeking the knowledge and entertainment that is plentiful and at their fingertips, and contributing to the story as it unfolds. Highest Common Denominator leverages the transformative power of new electronic and interactive distribution, the growing appetite for transformative dramas, and the abundance of real people the world over living lives worth learning about and learning from.
