Her Story
About Mary Ann
I started my career in 1997 at PR Newswire doing editorial work, pushing press releases through different outlets. From there, I moved into publishing, working for a magazine as a manager, and then to Accenture, where I really got my toes into writing even more. I've always been a writer - that's something I've done for fun since I was young. I was a reader first, and it was a natural progression into marketing and advertising and communications because I just loved the written word so much. There were so many different styles of writing and so many different ways to get messaging out. During the dot-com boom in '97-'98, I ended up in the digital arena and started building websites. I've worked at so many different places - Anthem, CareSource, WellDoc (which created the first FDA-approved diabetes app), the Federal Reserve doing technical editing for financial information, and even the Home Shopping Network many years ago. I worked at Whitman Heart Interactive as head strategist doing mostly B2C work for an ad agency. I've traveled pretty much everywhere, any place that I can learn. My heart has always been about how do I speak to people, and then it became content design - how do I put the right words in the right places. I started my current job in June of 2024 at an agency where we work with different types of clients, primarily non-profit communications and rebranding work. We've worked with the state of Ohio for their Butler County Warren Employment Agency, helping rebrand them so younger people would feel comfortable coming to them for assistance. My biggest client so far has been Zone 4, a supply chain company that had zero marketing when we came in - it was all word of mouth. I was responsible for gathering all the information about them and creating their brand narrative, their visuals, their entire public impression. I really understand human behavior from all the different people I've had the benefit of working with, and that makes me a very accurate communicator.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Mary Ann
01What do you attribute your success to?
Honestly, it's all of the places I've worked. With every experience that I've had, the older we get, the more knowledge we accumulate from different scenarios and situations. I think being thrown to the wolves, as they would say, has been really beneficial to me, and maybe that's just because that's how I learn best - under fire. I would say that all of the places I've worked have given me incredible knowledge, and I'm really grateful for it. I've learned along the way from every single experience.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
I think it really does go back to my father that said adapt and overcome, which is probably why, even in between roles, I've managed to keep going and not give up, or retreat. I think it came from my father. My father was in the military - he was drafted during Vietnam and stationed out in Alaska - and he has been a pretty strong influence over me in that you do what you have to do to get things done.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would tell them to take the jobs that seem like the worst possible thing ever, because nothing is permanent, and the best way to learn is to do it. And not to be intimidated or frightened by it. Is this hard work? Yeah, absolutely. Is it a learning experience? Because it's not just the experience of - marketing is all about understanding how people think. And so, the more experience you get around different types of people, the better you're going to understand how to work. And it's just going to improve your output. It's going to improve your relationships, it's going to improve everything. Don't be afraid to take risks.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The greatest challenge and opportunity is AI and how to adapt to that. Because everyone is using it, and it has unfortunate environmental implications, but we seem to be moving in that direction anyway. In order to be competitive, you have to understand how it works and how people might be using it, and you need to be able to look at stuff that's being presented to you and question everything. I think it's both a benefit and a curse, in a way. It makes us work more efficiently, but sometimes more efficiently isn't the best thing. We use AI at Demolanta because we have a very small team, but we use it for things like scheduling, and everything that you do with AI, you have to double, triple, and quadruple check because it's wrong. We're in an AI boom right now, kind of like the dot-com boom, and we'll see how long that actually lasts, because AI is only as intelligent as the information it's fed. We can't lose our humanity, and AI definitely doesn't have that connection that people need to feel with each other. We don't need to be further separated. We have a loneliness epidemic out there.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I think it's brutal honesty is one of them, because if someone isn't honest about the work, or honest about what's going on with them, how can you adjust things? How can you respond to help? I really do care about people's well-being above work. And I think that's one of the reasons why I chose to work where I do right now, is because the owner of the company where I work really cares about people first. So, the work is important, but also the people doing the work are equally important. It would be nice if our whole world could shift into that thinking.
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