Young Professionals Spotlight: Marc Lefton

1. What do you like most about living in Gainesville?

After deciding to leave New York City, I was spending a lot of time thinking about where I wanted to be, what I wanted to do and why I was doing it. But after a year and a half, I realized the most important thing is “who am I with?” Gainesville has not only some of the smartest people I’ve ever met, but also the kindest and most approachable. It quickly softened my hard New York exterior and made me nicer too.

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2. Tell us about your job or area of study.

I’ve been working in advertising in some form since I was 14. I didn’t go to college – I was a pretty terrible student, and my first foray into design was trying to make my own report card in the first semester of ninth grade. I got caught, and part of my punishment was to go to work with my mom during school vacations to the ad agency she worked at. The creative department there taught me the technical side of producing print ads. By the time I was 16, I was already working nights freelancing at a small agency doing production. When I was 20, I got a job at BBDO, one of the largest agencies in the world.

After working on large brands for so long, I wanted to help startups and grow companies, so I founded MGC Solutions, which focuses on creating marketing strategies and recruiting teams to execute them. We have a bunch of clients around the world. The great thing about launching a company like this in Gainesville is that the low cost of living here has allowed me to turn down clients that we would have otherwise taken just to make money – and instead we can focus on things we believe in.

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3. What’s one of the best pieces of career advice you’ve ever received?

I was giving a bunch of concepts to my creative director, and he looked at them and said, “You have to understand that these are all solid ideas, but I can come up with ideas just like it much faster than you. What I’m looking for from you more than anything is when I see your idea, I say ‘Hmm, I never would have thought of it that way before.’”