Marissa Festante
Management Supervisor, Marina Maher Communications
In the nearly eight years since Marissa Festante began her career at MMC right out of college, she has taken on roles of increased responsibility, rising from an assistant account executive to management supervisor, with experience in both consumer health and healthcare.
Festante is the day-to-day manager of the Kimberly-Clark account, one of the agency's top five clients, and she has been a key contributor to expansion of the business from one product to three since 2008.
Festante is the co-leader of the agency's Management Committee, comprised of midlevel staff and charged with developing and implementing best practices in account management across the agency. She has spearheaded the development of "Best Practice University," a higher learning curriculum of MMC's most valuable guidelines for success; an organic growth road map and toolkit for VP's; and she encourages knowledge sharing and collaboration on her team and across the agency. Festante is a trusted peer who exercises good judgment and decision making and is recognized by those who report to her as a leader who challenges them to always go beyond what's expected.
Festante 's exemplary client leadership resulted in record-breaking media success on behalf of the Depend brand—a category (adult diapers) that is largely spurned by media—while helping to change consumer perceptions about incontinence, an embarrassing health condition. Marissa nurtured the relationships with the Depend spokespeople’— actress Lisa Rinna and NFL stars Clay Matthews and Wes Welker—to ensure they delivered key program messages to a range of national and local media including The Today Show, ESPN, the New York Times, People, CNN and USA Today.
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