Rion Martin

“Rion Martin is that rare creator who combines intimidating marketing and sales prowess with bona fide technical ability and understanding. He has an authentic creative vision, and the patient tenacity to bend reality to his wishes. I had the pleasure of working for Rion for two years in his role as Director of Marketing for C2FO. Here are just a few of the things that stood out to me about him as both a coworker and leader: Rion is a strategic thinker. He is never reactive. Every move he makes is a carefully considered piece of a much larger plan he’s been perfecting since long before you ever heard about it. As one of his team, I always knew how everything I was doing day-to-day laddered up to our weekly, monthly, and quarterly goals. “Results-driven” is an adjective that gets used a lot. Rion is results obsessed. In the two years I knew him, he didn’t do anything, talk about anything, suggest anything, or entertain anything that couldn’t be measured. His first question any time a new idea was brought up was “How will we measure it?” He is the most technically fluent marketer I’ve ever worked with. I was constantly impressed at the way he was able to communicate his ideas to Product and Engineering. He was the only marketing person our developers respected and listened to, because he spoke their language. Rion is an incredibly empathetic person, which not only makes him a pleasure to work with, but also gives him deep and unique insights into the customer experience and how to solve problems. He has an uncanny ability to find root causes and come up with counterintuitive solutions that are elegantly simple. But even more importantly, what set him apart from all the other people with interesting ideas I knew was his disciplined focus on practical execution. Once he had an idea, he tested and iterated with relentless patience. While working 10-12 hour days and managing a team of four people, I watched him start two other businesses of his own in his spare time. As my director, he took a genuine interest in my development. He went above and beyond to give me the practical coaching and tools I needed to progress in my career, and to push me to be the best version of myself. During many of those talks, he would often wonder aloud about the best way to scale the kind of practical career prep he felt was so lacking in higher education. It’s both exciting and unsurprising he is building Stepladder now. ”

“‘Ridiculously effective’ is the phrase that comes to mind when I think of Rion Martin. Over the past year, I have had the privilege of working with Rion on the marketing team at AdParlor. During that time I have seen Rion excel at the core elements of his job including marketing strategy, campaign management, and lead generation. He also has proactively taken on other roles outside his job description such as partner marketing, video development, and vertical programs. In fact, as a direct result of Rion’s efforts, Facebook referred to AdParlor’s most recent Instagram marketing campaign as ‘the gold standard.’ What sets Rion apart is his mastery of his current position as well as his can-do attitude and willingness to take on new projects that are mission critical to the company’s growth. It is no surprise that Rion was promoted to Marketing Director within a mere 8 months at the company. Rion possesses that rare combination of tenacity, strategy, and creativity. He truly understands how to make marketing a secret weapon. Just as importantly, Rion leads by example. He is respected by his peers and the management team. He is a pleasure to work and I recommend him highly as a marketing leader in any organization. ”