Marisa Thalberg

As the Chief Brand Officer, Marisa Thalberg leads all product and brand marketing along with all brand engagement functions. Product/concept development and management, creative, merchandising, digital/social, media, strategic partnerships, communications teams report to her, and with these teams she’s leading the global brand forward in exciting ways, toward its mission of becoming a Category of One.

Today, she inspires her team and agencies to think about Taco Bell in unexpected ways, creating cultural topspin moments, including a first-ever collaboration collection with Forever 21 and making Taco Bell a destination wedding venue in Las Vegas, NV. She also flipped industry value advertising on its head, focusing the brand’s campaign on the product and experience instead of the price; creating the most elevated campaigns for the least expensive items on the menu. These successful projects are only the beginning and she is excited to continue elevating the brand.

Marisa has become a frequent industry speaker at conferences and events including The CMO Summit, IAB Leadership Summit, Luxury Interactive, BlogHer, InternetWeek and the WWD Summits. 

Among the honors she has received, Marisa has been named one of the top 5 Social Business Leaders in the Nation by The Economist, a Top 50 Women in Marketing by Brand Innovators, an Advertising Working Mother of the Year, an Advertising Age “Woman to Watch,” 2017 Woman of the Year by She Runs It, and 2017 Top 25 CMOs by Forbes. Her favorite, however, was being selected by UNICEF as their iconic representative of U.S. working mothers for their State of the World’s Children report.

Marisa is a Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude graduate of Brown University. She, her husband David, and their two daughters, Hannah and Avery, remain devout New Yorkers who have acclimated very nicely to their not-so-new home in Orange County, CA.