Making a difference globally

EMPOWERING GIRLS: A college internship pushed Shanna Marzilli toward social issues, and her goals today at Plan International USA are designed to have a global impact. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
EMPOWERING GIRLS: A college internship pushed Shanna Marzilli toward social issues, and her goals today at Plan International USA are designed to have a global impact. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER, NONPROFIT

Plan International USA Chief Marketing Officer Shanna Marzilli didn’t always envision herself in marketing. While pursuing her undergraduate degree in political science at Providence College, she saw her future in political campaigns. But it was only when she took an internship between her junior and senior year with the R.I. Department of Health that she started to change her mind about the direction of her career.

“They were just about to implement laws regarding regulating health insurance companies,” she said. “At the time – this is the mid-’90s – there was this attention being paid to health maintenance organizations and people being denied their benefits and care, especially around mental health care. … So Rhode Island had some very strict and new laws they put in place. … And because it was so new and it’s such a small state, I was able to do some very interesting work. I just really enjoyed it.”

After graduating in 1995, Marzilli stayed at the Department of Health and worked as a health policy analyst.

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In 1996, Marzilli made a jump to Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, where she was eventually promoted to a more senior role charged with creating and leading the corporate compliance and ethics program.

“When I went in to the compliance role, they wanted to put more emphasis on it, so we sort of rebuilt it from the ground up, making sure that people understood why it was important.

“People may say, ‘Why did you go from compliance to marketing?’ But for me, good compliance is marketing. Because you want people to want to follow the rules.”

Marzilli eventually was promoted to chief marketing officer at Blue Cross in 2011. In September 2013, after 13 years with Blue Cross, Marzilli moved over to Plan International USA as CMO.

One of the major draws to Plan, a multibillion-dollar non-governmental organization that works in more than 50 countries to eradicate poverty, was the work the organization does for young girls. Plan’s “Because I am a Girl” campaign has reached more than 5 million girls. The campaign provides scholarships for uniforms, bicycles, school fees, and helps with the construction of new schools, classrooms, school canteens and dormitories for students who live far away. It also helps administer training for teachers and community members.

“Girls are very marginalized in a lot of developing countries,” she said. In a lot of cases, they walk more than 5 kilometers a day to fetch water for their family. So a lot of our girls don’t get to go to school.

“It’s things that I never would have thought of like putting wells near schools. So if girls have to get water for their family, they can go to school and bring the water back,” she said.

Marzilli volunteers regularly in the Rhode Island community and was also instrumental in Plan’s Nepal Earthquake Disaster Relief Campaign in 2015, after the earthquakes that affected thousands of families. She led the marketing team to reach more than four times the initial goal via direct mail, advertising and email marketing, and “getting out” quickly.

“How well we respond depends on if we already work in these communities where the disasters happen, she said.” With the case in Nepal, we work very extensively there, and we already had a presence in the communities that were most impacted.

“What also helped was communicating results weekly. We were able to report back to our donors on a weekly basis. It helped build a momentum on the response, because people know their money was going to something they could measure that was tangible,” she said.

Marzilli attributed her success to “a mix of being creative, but also understanding that good marketing takes a lot of operational work.”

Winning a C-Suite Award is just the beginning for Marzilli and Plan International USA. One of Marzilli’s goals at Plan International is to create more awareness of the brand’s presence in the United States, as well as of the gender inequities that exist internationally.

“I really want to grow awareness and support for our “Because I am a Girl campaign,” she said.” In the U.S., it’s becoming part of a conversation, and I think it’s going to be a big conversation going forward. The payback of sending girls to school and ensuring that that their sexual and reproductive rights are protected has a huge impact on the global economy. I think people can’t ignore it anymore.” •

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