Luciana Marzilli Lord, better known to her colleagues as “Luc”, is a hospitality trained marketing leader who takes an “over the top” approach to surprise and delight customers and prospects. Creating personalized campaigns & experiences across industries, she serves as the Senior Director of Marketing at Repsly, returning to her retail roots to help CPG field reps deliver better in-store customer experiences.
Luc grew up just outside of Boston, one of three children from an Italian family with a strong heritage. Mr. Marzilli immigrated to the Boston area from Italy at 21, washing dishes and working at a local hotel as he paid his way into Northeastern on a path to a better life for himself and his future family. Studying engineering, today he owns a thriving home services business. Luciana’s mom is also Italian, and worked hard at a bank & then later as a high school culinary art teacher, growing up in Maine.
Luc and her siblings learned early (and often) to pull their own weight. Knowing their family’s origin story and how their parents supported them was an inspiration. Unsurprisingly, both Marzilli parents are still working. And all three Marzilli children are thriving professionally.
As a teenager, Luciana began waitressing at a local Italian restaurant. She was able to provide for herself and put the work ethic her parents had instilled in her to good use. Working at a restaurant, particularly this restaurant, made an impression. They preached the power of “over the top” hospitality and the rewards that come with putting in extra effort to serve customers and make them happy. They had a “never no” mentality and always talked about going above and beyond. The experience stuck with her. Perhaps she had a career in events and hospitality management ahead of her.
Luciana headed off to Northeastern like her dad, drawn to their co-op program. Enrolling with hospitality ambitions, she discovered marketing through a few amazing professors who helped her refocus to winning the hearts and minds of people through advertising and branded experiences.
At Northeastern she was lucky enough to land two prestigious 6 month internships at TJX and never left. She worked at TJX part time until she graduated, structuring her classes to fit her work schedule. Luciana felt really lucky to work at TJX, balancing early career imposter syndrome and vacuuming up learnings alongside world class marketing colleagues who managed big brand agencies and significant corporate resources.
She worked on photoshoots, prepped for TV commercials, and even helped market radio ads. Luciana was Associate of the Quarter in 2012, her first year out of school. She helped customize media, creative, and event campaigns for over 100 grand store openings along with international marketing campaigns, seasonal campaigns, and other in store initiatives. A pretty awesome start to any career in marketing she readily admits.
After nearly 5 years at the company, 3 of which came after graduation, the Boston tech & startup scene called to her. She found a role at athenahealth where she spent the next 6 years, building an amazing personal and professional network beyond her wildest dreams, influencing where she is today.
At athenahealth Luc held roles that spanned all types of demand generation – sponsorships, events, email, etc. in priority markets all through the lens of improving healthcare. She even owned their employer brand responsibilities during a time of rapid growth. Coordinating with their Brand team, HR, CMO and CHRO, she built out a new Employer Brand function presiding over 27 Employer of Choice awards. It was a successful initiative that brought her very close to the brand’s identity and athenahealth’s leadership team.
As she grew her skills, she was determined to try out an earlier stage startup. She took a chance on a relatively small company called Robin, a workplace software experience company, in early 2021 during the pandemic. Luc met their co-founder and CRO and instantly knew it would be a perfect fit.
At Robin, Luc started the Demand Generation team on a 4 person Marketing team. She loved every second of the opportunity to reimagine their demand generation engine, influencing and reinvigorating their marketing strategy. She worked tirelessly as their marketing team grew past 10 team members during her tenure there.
In 2022, Luc reconnected with a former athenahealth leader & colleague who had become Repsly’s CMO. Luc was excited about the work they are doing to support CPG brands of all sizes and she has embraced the opportunity to return to her Retail roots. She currently leads all demand generation, brand, social, and content strategy for Repsly as they help CPG brands and their field reps sell more at retail locations.
Marketing is Hospitality
When Luciana was just a teenager, she experienced the power of “over the top” hospitality. You don’t just meet customers’ needs, you surprise & delight them. You make them feel good. One time when she was waitressing and a customer asked for Kool Aid for their toddler, she was encouraged to run across the street to a local convenience store to grab some.
As she became a marketer and progressed through her career serving businesses and consumers, she leverages that early experience to meet people where their needs are..and go past them.
Whether it’s taking someone’s dinner order or understanding your buyer in a large, multi billion dollar global market, solving their pain (or thirst?) where they are is paramount. Whether you are a waiter or a marketer, being able to surprise & delight prospects and customers by crafting personalized campaigns to address their needs in an “over the top” way is the key to breaking through. From experiences to taglines to creative, Luciana has learned to flex different muscles in an effort to help make customers smile through personalization. It makes a world of difference.
3 Career Insights / Learnings
Finding Balance – “You can’t give 120% to every aspect of your life all at the same time. Learning how to balance the professional with the personal – and everything in between – is critical to ensure you are the best version of yourself every time you show up for your team and your company.”
If It’s Hard, Do It Again – “If something is hard, but worth it… don’t shy away from it. Keep doing it over it and over and over again until it’s easy, that’s how you grow.”
Build Your Relationships – “Relationships are everything. If you show up to work every day being the best version of yourself, treating people with respect, you’re building your network. If you don’t take the time to build them, you won’t go far.”
Luciana loves startups and aspires to be a Head of Marketing someday. Maybe even a CMO. The key right now is building out her arsenal or skills, learning and making mistakes but adding value all the while. She feels lucky to be in constant “learning mode” under a really smart mentor & leader, Repsly’s CMO, Caitlin Will.
If you want to learn more about Luciana, you can find her running Marketing at Repsly, building her new home just to the West of Boston, or on LinkedIn. Thanks for sharing Luc. Excited to see all the above & beyond marketing experiences you design in the years ahead!