Fresh out of Roanoke College, Deb (Murray) Lemon ’90 was working as an accounting clerk and delivering Domino’s at night to make ends meet when she and Diana Friedlander ’90 hatched an adventurous plan.
“I hadn’t been west of the Mississippi, so we formulated this idea of driving across the U.S.,” Lemon said. “It was kind of like ‘Thelma and Louise,’ except nobody died that we know of, so we have a fun story.”
Nearly four months and 11,000 miles after leaving the nation’s capital, Lemon landed in Colorado with loads of memories but empty pockets. When she walked into the Nike factory store in Silverthorne looking for work, she had no idea she was embarking on an even grander journey—one that would take her around the world and to the top of a global marketing firm.
At Roanoke, Lemon had majored in business administration, played basketball, served as student body president, and joined Delta Gamma. As a first-generation college student who hadn’t been far from her hometown of Fredericksburg, Virginia, those opportunities were formative. “I had a good range of experiences in both social leadership and just showing up for people at Roanoke,” she said, “and that was really eye-opening and interesting for me.”
Her determination to explore life’s every nook and cranny took her across the country and into that Nike store, where she secured a retail job at $4.50 per hour. Working after-hours events at Breckenridge Resort helped her land an invitation to work the Nike Honolulu Marathon, where she mingled with sports marketing executives, Japanese business partners and elite runners.
“I was hooked,” Lemon said. “That confluence of all of us together working to create a goal that had a start and a finish — it felt amazing.”
By 1996, Lemon had worked her way up to running events manager in the Nike marketing division, which took her to the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta and running events in New York, Chicago and Boston. She lived in London for a year, then in New York, where she founded the Nike Women’s Marathon and came up with the idea to award a Tiffany’s necklace to every finisher — still her favorite project.
Lemon made the jump to a marketing agency in 2005, partnering with Dan Hirsch at On Board Experiential (OBE), an award-winning, global company headquartered in Los Angeles that specializes in creating impactful brand experiences. Their work includes Nike’s After Dark Los Angeles 13.1 (with a London event executing this fall), the EEEEEATSCON food festival series for The Infatuation, and the JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge—the largest global running event. Lemon, who serves as CEO and co-owner of OBE, has helped grow the firm from eight employees to 150. She was instrumental in incubating and launching multicultural sister agency Think True and contributed to the acquisition of a London-based agency, now operating as OBE’s first international office.
Deb (Murray) Lemon '90 was the first in her family to graduate from college. Now, thanks to a mix of hard work, tenacity and life experience, she leads an award-winning, global marketing firm that creates memorable brand experiences for clients all over the world.
Looking back over her 30 years in marketing, Lemon points to relationship-building as one of the two most important factors in her success. For example, one of her best clients today was previously her intern at Nike.
“How you treat people and work with people in business is not a short-term thing because you never know where you’re going to run into somebody next,” she said.
The second factor in Lemon’s success is that thirst for experience. Her advice to Roanoke College students and recent graduates is to take every opportunity to grow, learn and lead, no matter how small. Volunteer for the plant sale. Take a retail job and mop floors. Reach out and introduce yourself. Take the trip. Tackle the intimidating project.
“All these experiences laid the foundation for my leadership style,” Lemon said. “I like to be curious, adaptable and always prioritize authentic connections. Leadership isn’t about titles; it’s about influence and impact. If you don’t have those, it’s hard to make a dent — no matter what your title is.”