Margeaux McCarthy, 33

If you ask Margeaux McCarthy what she does for a living, it’s hard to pin her down.

It’s not because she’s elusive. Far from it. It’s because she does so much.

Photo by Mark Wemple

McCarthy owns a marketing company and an online retail shop specializing in dancewear. She’s also commercial real estate broker along with her husband, Hunter.

“Yeah, so, I wear many hats,” says the mother of two. “Basically, my involvement in my county, in Charlotte County, is very heavy. I focus on the primary broader life aspect of it, and I'm kind of business savvy.”

McCarthy’s entrepreneurial bent comes naturally.

She grew up in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, a small resort town north of Kennebunkport. It’s the kind of place that goes from 9,000 residents during most of the year to 75,000 during the summer.

Growing up, her parents owned restaurants and were “very business oriented.”

“They were constantly looking” for what was next, she says. “I saw their dedication to running a business. That was very much instilled in me at a young age.”

As many kids growing up in a family business, she worked in the restaurants after school and in the summer.

Her parents eventually divorced, and she moved to Punta Gorda for her junior year in high school.

What followed was a long string of jobs and entrepreneurial pursuits that took her from Florida Atlantic University and later Los Angeles before meeting Hunter and settling back down in Punta Gorda.

Those pursuits included opening a “little marketing company” while in college that created websites and social media for restaurants where she’d served.

She also worked as a dancer for an entertainment company that would put on shows for events — bar and bat mitzvahs, parties, birthdays. Part of the job was being what she calls a “party pumper,” the person who gets the crowds excited.

And she spent time on a marketing street team for Florida Atlantic that helped hype events.

“It’s very much all under the marketing umbrella,” she says of her work then and now.

As for her endeavors today, McCarthy credits Hunter for helping her keep it all running. They work together and balance one another out, she says.

“He genuinely sees what I'm lacking, and not me as a person lacking, but in the circumstance,” she says. “He'll see the full picture; he'll complete the picture.”