Hi, I’m Marissa. I’m a lifetime story teller as I’ve been an actress since age 4. My first part was in Bambi. I played her mother and said, “Oh, Mrs. Rabbit, I would LOVE a cup of coffee.”

I’ve been hooked ever since! As a publicist, marketeer, and entrepreneur, I love to share stories of organizations that make people think, laugh, and take action to pursue their dreams.

However, having been raised with a social worker as a mother, I know that good stories are not always enough. Stories must be truly great, relatable, and timely, to grab the hearts of readers and inspire change. In addition, it’s the work of social innovators that have the most touching stories and make the greatest difference.

To help drive this movement, I co-founded Green Spaces New York, my city’s go-to coworking space for innovators and change-makers to work, innovate, and host meaningful events that drive dialog and action. We’ve become a hub for social enterprise, where innovation happens for our new economy every day.

To further scale communities for good, I am launching Flockd, a real-world app for connectivity and productivity, inspired by the coworking movement and social concerns like what’s happening in the wake of Superstorm Sandy.

It’s my dream to create a new way for people to connect offline. Flockd is a tool people can use in any public space that signals who you are and what you’re seeking or offering — something anyone nearby can see, engage with, respond to, and take action, with or without a smartphone.

Technology is essential to our daily lives. However, as someone who experienced chaos first-hand when I couldn’t use technology during a disaster, I believe Flockd will fill the gap between the real and technological world, offering a tangible, independent way to accelerate people’s power to help one another.

Click here to learn how Flockd works and more. Join the conversation on our Forbes blog, Facebook or Twitter communities, and help a person sitting next to you.

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I’m proud that I serve the boards of:

Additional roles:

  • Co-host of Purpose Roundtable Social Entrepreneurship
  • Marketing and PR for The Feast
  • Guest teaching/speaking PR for Early Stage Startups for: Investor’s Circle Conference, NYC’s and Kaufman’s FastTrac program, Skillshare, and Parsons The NEW School for Design

PAST

  • Partnership Development for Felissimo, having launched DESIGN 21, socialdesigner.com, JapanC and Japan Brand
  • Communications, branding, and marketing roles for Sunshine Sachs (Earth Day Network, The Nature Conservancy NY, Water For People), StartingBloc, Plant a Fish, CleanEdison, General Electric Foundation, General Electric Aircraft Engines, Fleishman Hillard, and British Telecom, among others
  • Editorial roles in publishing and journalism for Random House, The Princeton Review, Jon Wiley & Sons, and Focus Magazine

Click here for more information and here for my LinkedIn page.