Sarah Murphy

Client Relationship Manager, Traffic Manager, Market Mentors, LLC; Age 27

Sarah Murphy went to college just outside Boston — at Lasell University in Auburndale — and was thinking about a summer internship in the Hub between her junior and senior years. But the city is expensive, and she quickly determined it was too expensive, so she opted to come back home to Agawam for summer break.

With some guidance from a friend, Bob Greeley, owner of R.J. Greeley Co., she readjusted her sights for an internship and started by talking with Michelle Abdow, owner of Market Mentors. That talk led — eventually — to the start of a career in the marketing business, and an intriguing job with many moving parts.

That’s eventually, because Murphy later interned in Boston for a large marketing firm and had to make the decision about which side of the state to work in. She chose Springfield, and Market Mentors, and has never looked back.

“In Boston, it felt like I would have been a little fish in a big pond,” she explained. “In coming here, I feel like I’m making more of an impact being with a smaller agency — and that spoke volumes to me.”

That impact, as she called, it, can be seen both in the agency and within the community.

Indeed, Murphy is now relationship manager and ‘traffic manager,’ a new position in which she handles a number of responsibilities and builds on experience gained while working her way up the ladder.

“I’m the liaison between the account executives and the other departments at the agency — I’m the middle person between our AEs and our copy and design, digital, and web departments,” she explained. “And I manage the deadlines for all of our projects. You might say I’m the hub for the agency; all the workflow goes through me.”

As noted, she is also quite active in the community, continuing a pattern that started in college, when she traveled to Uganda for two months with the Shoulder to Shoulder program and assisted seventh-grade school children by teaching science. Today, she’s an involved board member for the Foundation for TJO Animals, which supports the Thomas J. O’Connor Animal Control & Adoption Center.

With TJO, she helps lead many of its fundraising and outreach events, such as the Ride Like an Animal Motorcycle Run and Car Show. She also volunteers additional time at the adoption center, providing companionship to the shelter’s numerous animals.

 

—George O’Brien