Jill Marcinick
Philanthropic Advisor
With 30 years of corporate, nonprofit and community leadership experience, Jill has driven organization development, initiated and deployed strategic marketing initiatives, launched social enterprises and championed transformational leadership programs. Most recently, serving as a philanthropic advisor to Cohesion Foundation, Jill has demonstrated a unique breadth of expertise.
Jill earned a bachelor’s degree in East Asian Studies and Japanese from Wittenberg University, with international studies abroad at London School of Economics, Johns Hopkins University (SAIS) and Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan. Earlier in her career, Jill worked for a Japanese corporate travel service and pioneered a variety of student exchange programs, youth-sports camps, academic administrative tours with the State of Ohio and multicultural special events between U.S. and Japan. Working for Cardinal Health, the second largest pharmaceutical wholesaler in the United States, Jill was responsible for leading multiple complex events, corporate board functions, golf outings, VIP activities and trade show management. Jill inherited a strong work ethic and sense of community giving through her experiences in the family fire protection business, ABCO Fire Protection.
In 2008, Jill founded the Live Safe Foundation, an Ohio non-profit organization (501c3), devoted to making fire and life safety education, awareness initiatives and life-saving tools available on a broad basis to communities, campuses, and institutions in an effort to reduce national fire fatalities and fire losses.
Jill has been involved in many philanthropies, community service projects and professional organizations such as the Pleasure Guild of Children’s Hospital, The Childhood League Center, Leadership Dublin, Franklin Park Conservatory Women’s Board, NAWBO, as well as a former Board Member of Christine’s Christmas of the Christine Wilson Foundation.
Born and raised as a Buckeye fan in an athletic family, Jill's father played baseball at Ohio State and her husband, Gary, played football for the Buckeyes. Her grandfather was a quarterback at Syracuse and in the NFL. Jill’s adult sons both were college athletes at Yale University (football) and Babson College (hockey). As a sports enthusiast herself playing competitive tennis, triathlon and alpine skiing, sports is a way of life. One of Jill’s favorite experiences as a Buckeye fan was in October 1993, when Jill co-designed and escorted 100 members of the The Ohio State University Alumni Marching Band (TBDBTL) to Osaka, Japan where the band appeared among 13,000 performers and 14 nations for the Midosuji Parade.
“It’s an incredible honor to support and serve Cohesion Foundation with strategy, philanthropic guidance and development needs. As NIL rules and standards evolve, Cohesion Foundation is “as good as it gets”. I am proud of all the hard work that Cohesion's Leadership Team has put into building and establishing the “Gold Standard” as a national non-profit NIL leader. It is validation of the effort Cohesion’s inaugural Executive Director and devoted Associate Team has put into providing an unparalleled purpose-driven NIL experience for Ohio State student-athletes and the charities in which they serve. It is reaffirmation for the integral role Cohesion plays for Ohio State Athletics in this new era of NIL. The best is still ahead for Cohesion and Buckeye Nation!”