E12: Marissa Freeman of Union Square Hospitality Group

“We are human-to-human, whether you’re B2B or B2C. There’s no such distinction; it’s people-to-people.”

Marissa Freeman cut her teeth in the agency world, rising through the ranks as an account director at renowned agencies including DDB, BBDO, and Deutsch LA, serving clients like Hasbro and DirecTV. She eventually left that world to ply her trade in-house, landing at Time Warner Cable before spending nearly a decade at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, steering the company's creative organization as Chief Brand Officer. A year into the pandemic, Marissa’s path would take her full-circle back to the industry she spent years in before diving into agencies: hospitality. Back then she was a server; this time, she joined Danny Meyer’s storied Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG) as Chief Marketing Officer. We were pleased to join Marissa for lunch at — where else — Union Square Cafe. Shane sat down with Marissa to discuss agency versus in-house life, why software is a hospitality industry, and what it was like steering USHG through pandemic challenges.