Marissa Shorenstein is the Chief External Affairs Officer at Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment where she oversees communications, community and government relations. Previously, Shorenstein served as Principal, SKDK, where she advised global clients on strategic and crisis communications issues as well as legislative and regulatory oversight challenges and traditional, social, and digital media strategy. In 2021 Shorenstein served as Director of the Executive Transition for New York State's first female governor, Kathy Hochul.
Shorenstein served as Global Chief Communications Officer for WeWork after spending more than eight years at AT&T where she served as President - Northern Region, overseeing the company's external affairs for seventeen states from Maine to Illinois, as well as Washington, DC. She previously served as AT&T's Regional President for the Northeast and New York State President. Shorenstein was one of just a handful of female officers of the company, and the youngest in company history.
Prior to joining AT&T, Shorenstein ran Marissa Shorenstein LLC, where she offered strategic communications consulting services to a wide range of clients including private sector institutions facing PR crises, tech start- ups looking for guidance on product launches, hedge funds and private equity firms requiring investor relations and sales and marketing assistance and non-profit organizations desiring speechwriting, media training and story placement expertise.
Ms. Shorenstein was Director of Communications for Andrew Cuomo's successful 2010 campaign for Governor of New York State. Before joining the Cuomo campaign, she was Press Secretary and Deputy Director of Communications for Governor David A. Paterson where she also oversaw communications for the dozens of states agencies across the state.
From 2004 – 2007 Marissa served as Senior Manager for Strategic Planning and Corporate Communications for the New York Jets while earning her JD from Fordham Law School's Evening Division. In her capacity at the Jets, she was the chief spokesperson for the controversial stadium development project on Manhattan's West Side. Prior to joining the Jets, Marissa was a Senior Associate at SS+K, a national strategic communications firm based in New York. Marissa joined SS+K after serving as Press Secretary to Carl McCall's campaign for Governor of New York, the youngest person to hold that position for any New York Gubernatorial campaign.
While an undergraduate student at Harvard University, from which she became the first female to graduate with honors in three years, Marissa traveled as one of five members of the National Press Advance staff for the Gore Presidential campaign where she planned press events and coordinated logistics for the traveling press corps. She has also worked in the New York City Mayor's Office, on the 1992 and 1996 Clinton campaigns and on the 2004 Wesley Clark campaign. Marissa was also New York Director of Communications for Cover the Uninsured Week, a public awareness campaign funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and co-sponsored by dozens of non-profit, labor and business organizations around the country to highlight and create awareness about the tens of millions of Americans without health insurance.
Shorenstein is currently a Commissioner of the New York State Gaming Commission, Chair of the Citizens Budget Commission (CBC), member of the Board of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York (JCRC) and Mom's First. She is the former Chair of the Board of Girls Who Code. In becoming Chair of the CBC, Shorenstein broke the glass ceiling as the first female chair in CBC's venerable 90-year history.