Right Side Up Talent Spotlight: Marc Okeon

The Right Side Up Talent Spotlight series showcases our full-time employees and growth marketing consultants. Learn more about Marc Okeon, GM of Full-Time Recruitment, and his story as he brings unique expertise to his role here at Right Side Up.

We’re excited to highlight Marc Okeon, a senior marketing executive with the recruiting chops to match. When we needed someone to fill the role of GM of Full-Time Recruitment, Marc—who was referred by an RSU colleague—fit the bill perfectly.

Dive into his professional background and what led him to Right Side Up after a storied career in growth marketing, leadership, and recruiting.

You’ve been with us since October 2024. Tell us what your title is and describe your role at RSU.
I’m our GM, Full-Time Recruitment. I joined in October to help continue scaling up Right Side Up’s full-time recruiting business. RSU gives organizations the opportunity to hire premium marketing talent in a full-time capacity as well as fractionally.

So you are a marketer. Tell us more about your professional background and any achievements you’re proud of or notable brands you’ve worked with.
I actually started out in finance and analytics early in my career, and soon after pivoted into digital marketing for e-commerce startups. Startups are my bread and butter. I did acquisition marketing at eBags.com, then moved over to a Series B company doing retention and partnerships at Craftsy.

After that, I joined a boutique recruiting firm called RevelOne in 2018 in its early days—they’re now one of the larger marketing recruiting firms out there. I did a number of different things there, including:

• Built the back-end ops function, including managing the team that did that
• Led different roles across all verticals and seniorities (this means B2B clients, B2C clients, fintech, e-commerce, you name it) 
• Recruited across all seniority levels, from C-suite down to Manager/Director level

That experience—the blend of domain-specific recruiting and marketing expertise—led me to my role here at Right Side Up.‍

Where is home these days? What is your work environment like?
I’m based in Fort Collins, Colorado, which is about an hour outside of Denver. I’m very much a digital nomad, having worked remotely since 2018. It’s second nature to me now, so I definitely spend a lot of time in workshare spaces and coffee shops—a much nicer change of pace from when I was working from the road and from airports more often than not in previous roles.

Is there something in particular that’s exciting you about marketing or the future of marketing?
What excites me about building this (full-time recruiting business) at RSU right now is the growing need for specialization. Businesses—at least the startups we talk to—are going to have a need for a more technical marketer. Resources are not as abundant. It’s not like it was a few years ago when there were low interest rates and companies were flush with cash so they could hire a lot of people to do a lot of different things. Now, you need marketers that aren’t just great at strategy; they’re also great at doing.

Because we’re marketers ourselves, we’re building a pipeline of people and assessing and vetting them better than traditional recruiters because we’ve done those roles before.

I see it all the time with more senior roles: On paper, these folks look great. They have a great elevator pitch and know how to sell themselves. I have the ability to ask a question or two deeper, because I’ve been there, to gauge if they can really accomplish the objectives our clients need to get done.

Now, what this does for our clients—and what really excites me—is when you’re a startup you have a very strict timeline. You’re either PE-backed or VC-backed and, either way, you have clear expectations from your investor to do something. There’s no wiggle room and no wasting time.

If you make a bad hire, it wastes time and it’s high risk. If you just got an investment, the expectation is that you’re going to grow to a certain point within a certain amount of time. You need to make hires that can be driving impact from day one and hitting trajectories in order to meet that point.

So, all that to say, I’m excited to help high-growth startups de-risk their team building so they can achieve their goals. It’s something that a lot of people need.

‍What has the flexibility of Right Side Up’s model allowed you to do outside of work?
I have three daughters. They’re 15, 12, and 10, and they’re in a lot of activities. Dance, karate—and I traveled a lot for my last job, so I get to be more present for stuff now.Plus, since we live in Colorado, we do a lot of hiking year-round and camping in the summer. I’ll even take calls from my trailer that I’ve outfitted with antennas.

‍Send us off with a fun fact.

‍My middle name is Brian, and I was raised being called that. To this day my parents, my family, my childhood friends, and my wife all call me Brian. When I got to college, I was working at a restaurant and they introduced me as Marc, which is technically my legal first name, so I didn’t feel the need to correct them and it just stuck. 

Today, we’ll have people over at my house and everyone gets really confused. “Is his name Brian? I met him a few months ago, and his name was Marc!” I’m not sure if it’s a fun fact so much as it’s a pain in my ass, but I’ll go with it.

‍Looking to hire full-time or fractional marketing talent? Drop us a line. Are you interested in joining the Right Side Up team? Reach out at talent@rightsideup.co.