Meet Rising Marketing Star Stefanie Pinsley Who Quit Google to Go Solo

In the current economic climate, breaking into any industry at such a tumultuous time is truly tough. But finding a start in the digital marketing industry has proven to be particularly challenging in recent years, with many fresh graduates possessing a host of different degrees, competing to apply their skills and secure these coveted marketing roles.

New York based marketing professional Stefanie Pinsley has proven that sometimes, you just need to be willing to take a risk. The 26-year-old boasts an impressive resume of various marketing roles, topped off by a three year stint at Google. Having a Bachelor of Science degree from the prestigious Cornell University in Applied Economics and Management, Pinsley made the jump into the marketing world while still at college. 

During her own college studies, she took on a marketing teaching assistant role, which involved mentoring and evaluating the work of various teams’ marketing plans, while also collaborating with them to help guide their plan development. In 2015, Pinsley took one of the biggest risks she could have so early on in her career. With the promise of a marketing internship at a new food delivery startup, she flew out to Los Angeles without even having a place to live, something she says was, “in retrospect, a pretty risky decision”. 

However, she adds that it turned out to be “one of the best summers yet”. While in LA, she quickly got promoted to interim marketing director, and following her internship, she launched that same food delivery app at Cornell. Things came full circle when she recruited, hired and managed a team of more than 20 students to build brand awareness across the campus. The campaign started as a wholly grassroots one, incorporating flyering, social media marketing, and face-to-face marketing. The hard work paid off when she generated the top number of pre-launch leads among all campus managers across the nation.

Following this, she went on to hold three more marketing roles before finding a place at Google: director of target membership marketing for an international fraternity, social media and marketing consultant for New York based PocketSights, and marketing and sales intern for Manhattan Media. Holding a number of awards from her educational and professional journey so far like Magna Cum Laude, Dyson Scholar, Dean’s List, and numerous first place business competition prizes, Pinsley’s back catalogue of accolades and experience would prove to be a powerful negotiating tool.

Getting her foot in the door at Google was one of her biggest career accomplishments yet. After being accepted to their highly competitive Associate Product Marketing Manager program, she started as an APMM, and led the team that launched the Home Alone campaign, a huge responsibility for a newcomer in this program. In 2019, she would be promoted to product marketing manager, launching many successful brand and influencer campaigns, bringing various new products and features to market, and partnering with companies like the New York Times on nation-wide campaigns.

But despite looking like the cookie cutter image of success, Pinsley had dreams of building her own business. She left San Francisco, moved back in with her parents and quit Google in February of 2021 to pursue her own entrepreneurial endeavors in marketing.  And while still in the early stages of building her business, having many impressive achievements to her name and top companies on her resume, the future is looking promising for the independent up-and-comer.

You can find Stefanie on Instagram at @roadmap.to.rise, on TikTok at @roadmap.to.rise or on her website at roadmaptorise.com.

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