Why [me]: Tiffany's Story

As People and Talent Administrator, Tiffany Marquess, is one of the most seasoned employees at MarginEdge and also is one of the first people you talk to in the hiring process. Coincidence? For a company with a strong culture and deep roots in the hospitality industry, we think not. Tiffany has been with MarginEdge essentially since the company was created, but her story with supporting restaurants starts years before that at a hostess stand in an Outback Steakhouse. 

About 25 years ago, Tiffany worked as a hostess at a NoVa (Northern Virginia) Outback Steakhouse for around 6 years. She was there when Outbacks were all the rage, providing a reliable product, laxed ambience, and reasonable prices. The clientele were your typical NoVa diners made up of families solving the loaded “What’s for dinner?” question and business men just trying to unwind before moseying home to whatever awaited them behind their front doors. She loved it. 

Never wanting to be a server, Tiffany enjoyed the power hosts held within the restaurant and loved engaging with every customer. Her favorite guests during her time there were none other than the Redskins (now known as the Commanders) football team. Their practice facility was a stone's throw from the restaurant, so after sweating it out they would come and feast at her location. 

Thanks to being recognized for her great work ethic and attention to detail, Tiffany was given an opportunity to move into Outback’s corporate operations, specifically working on the administrative side. She accepted the role and was assigned to work under none other than Roy Phillips, one of MarginEdge’s founders.

One of her tasks was helping open a Bonefish Grill restaurant where she excelled pretty quickly. If you know Tiffany, this isn’t surprising. Her brain was made for management and organization. Roy, who was a JVP for Bloomin Brands (Outback and Bonefish’s parent company) at the time, needed a new assistant and couldn’t think of anyone better fit for the job. Tiffany started as Roy’s assistant and the rest was history. 

The two worked together for years. Tiffany was Roy’s right-hand woman as he opened 15 Bonefish restaurants in the Mid-Atlantic region. Roy decided to step down and ‘retire’ (creating MarginEdge on the side) so Tiffany did the same. She took a couple of years off to keep up with her busy sons, until 2014 when she received that fateful call from Roy to join [me]. 

As one of [me]’s first employees, she has worked in almost every department. Her first position was in Operations, and has since bounced to Customer Onboarding, Payments, and many others. Tiffany laid the groundwork for many systems [me] still has in place today, as the scope of her effect on the company is irrefutable. 

Currently, Tiffany is a People and Talent Administrator – a position she loves. She is the first person you talk to when interviewing for a position that isn’t under Sales, the person who sends you your offer letter, and the person who greets you on your first day and completes onboarding with you. Tiffany feels at home in this position. 

From starting with the company when there was only one other full-time employee, to now having around 200 stateside [me]ople, the privilege of meeting almost every person who comes to MarginEdge is something she is really grateful for. 

If you had told her when she started in 2015 that [me] would be as big as it is today, she would have looked at you like you had three heads. From working with maybe eight people and manually emailing clients that their invoice picture is blurry, to now having a button in the software (along with hundreds of others) that notify clients about all sorts of updates on their account, it is astonishing to Tiffany how we have grown. 

When she is not laying the groundwork for the future of [me] and putting out little fires at work, she has a super fruitful life at home.Tiffany has three adult sons and a new fiancé who keeps her busy day in and day out. When her sons were younger, she spent much of her time on baseball fields watching them through the years, and now gets to watch them coach. The circle of life, you could say. 

It’s hard to express the impact an individual can have at a start-up. While it is a job, dedication to someone else’s dream is not always guaranteed or even a requirement, so when it happens, it feels incredibly special. 

There’s only one person, who could put into words just how special Tiffany is to [me], and that’s Roy Philips. “Wow, when it comes to Tiffany, I don't know where to start. Tiff has been a rock who has stood beside me through thick and thin for over 20 years. She has an incredible ability to always know where to be, and when to be there to make things run seamlessly and perfectly. Not only is she incredible at her job and anything she sets her mind to, but even more important is who she is as a person. She’s a wonderful mother to her sons and a close supportive friend to so many. I consider myself very lucky, and we at [me] very fortunate to have Tiffany at our side as we grow this wonderful company."

Tiffany is a crucial part of the [me] team and we are so happy to have her as one of our [me]ople. She’s so crucial, in fact, there is a rap dedicated to her, which was performed at our company All-Hands back in March 2023. There’s no better way to wrap up this article on her than with the lyrics to ‘Tiffany Marquess’ by Mark Prysler.