Marissa Buonamici learned early on that most engagement efforts don’t fail because people don’t care. They fail because they were never really designed for the people they were meant to reach.

She saw it firsthand working in HR at Amazon fulfillment centers—an environment where every second counts, shifts are long, and the work is fast and demanding. Partnering closely with employees and managers, she saw how quickly messages get lost when they don’t match the reality of the job. When people are focused on hitting their numbers and getting through the day, anything that doesn’t immediately resonate gets tuned out.

Marissa worked side by side with frontline employees and leaders, navigating complex employee relations issues and supporting teams through constant change. She saw what builds trust, what breaks it, and how hard it is to regain once it’s lost.

Today, she brings that perspective to her work with clients. At Strategy Muse, Marissa supports a global pharmaceutical company as it rapidly expands into new countries, shaping communications that keep its sales force informed, engaged and connected to the company’s mission. She has also partnered with a large public power organization, supporting change communications for a major HR technology implementation and playing a key role in developing an employee value proposition designed to stand out and attract the right talent.

When engagement efforts lose sight of the people they’re intended for, they stop working. Marissa makes sure that connection isn’t lost by keeping the employee perspective in the room.

Outside of work, Marissa is a devoted fan of electronic dance music—drawn to genres like drum and bass, techno, and dubstep, where every track is engineered, layer by layer, to hit an audience in a specific way, at a specific moment. It's the same instinct she brings to her work: everything built around the people on the receiving end.

Education

• Indiana University Bloomington, BA, Psychology

• Indiana University Bloomington, Honors Certificate, Liberal Arts and Management Program