Megan at Work

If you ask those who know her best (and we did), Megan’s favorite catchphrase is “It’s more complicated than that.” She means this less as a rebuttal and more as an invitation to personal growth. Not one to shy away from the complex, technical, and paradoxical, her real strength is taking what she learns amid the complexity and using it to formulate clear, concise growth strategies.

As MarketPlace’s Growth Strategy Director and with design as her primary tool, she compels our partners not merely to see the road before them but to understand how MarketPlace is integral to their journey.

A MINI HISTORY

After the market crash of 2008, and favoring hands-on experience, Megan passed on a scholarship to The School of the Art Institute of Chicago to start immediately, sans-interview and during a busy time, at MarketPlace. She came up from Production Designer to Associate CD and Strategist and then went on to start her own business, working with companies like Phillips 66, Toast, and Washington University.

During that time she also ran an e-commerce business, co-founded two SaaS companies, won a Webby, and witnessed the value of a good story and happy customers for organic growth. We’re glad to have her back.

Megan at Home

She gardens, she learns, she cooks, she watches, she listens to music, she spends time with her husband, son, family, and friends. What else do you need, really?

RECENTLY PINNED

In almost any field of work there’s this place, this creative state of mind, you can get into. It’s not serious but it’s not frivolous; it’s playfully sincere. That’s my favorite way to work, and Caroll Spinney is the absolute visual embodiment of it. Someday when I tire of serious work, I’m going to make a painting of this photo, frame it up, and hang it on my gallery wall.

Memorable Meal

“Gonna be the best fried fish sandwiches you ever had!” said her father, parking the red cross-country minivan. Megan was 14 and skeptical, not only in general but also, specifically, of what lay before them: a dust-up of a restaurant. A cabin-shack of a restaurant. A B-movie prop of a restaurant.

Still, they walked in, and every head turned their way. So did every smell: grease trap, fishy fish, fake ferns.

Megan held her breath, scanned her surroundings, and noticed a rack of for-sale costume jewelry and boas.

Still, her dad (strangely and calmly) ordered. To go, but still, he ordered.

That day, Megan learned to mind the first red flag. And that ducks aren’t discriminating fish sandwich consumers.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.

- John Muir