Michelle Gabe serves as the marketing director of hot sauce brand Truff, overseeing social media, brand partnerships and influencer outreach. Since joining Truff in 2020 after leaving creative agency Shadow, she led Truff's first brand partnership with Taco Bell last year—earning 400 million media impressions.

The 31-year-old executive also developed the popular brand’s first YouTube series, “What the Truff?!,” resulting in an 87% viewership uptick in just under three months. The series has featured celebrity guests including actor Jaleel White, artist Gashi and chef Ed Tinoco.

Truff, which first launched its sauces on Instagram in 2017, quickly became a huge success on social media. The brand prioritizes social media campaigns to engage its 219,000 Instagram followers and 226,500 supporters on TikTok.

“We're very into social media, so we put a lot of our apples in one basket, meaning we're doing Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, Pinterest and basically every single thing," said Gabe. "Right now, a big part of our focus is on YouTube."

If you could have dinner with one person, alive or dead, who would it be and why?

Lisa Ling is definitely the person I would love to have dinner with. I think she is such an amazing storyteller and she has the most unique stories ever. I don't know if you watch any of her shows, but you'll find if you did that you'll be fascinated with legitimately the strangest of subjects that you would ever even think of, but she's just cool.

What are the top two social media sites you use on a regular basis?

Personally, Instagram and then another one that I use is Reddit. I think it's really interesting because of its very unique points of view. 

What’s currently on your bedside reading list?

I'm rereading a book that was actually recommended to me by the two Truff co-founders. It's called “Trust Me, I’m Lying” by Ryan Holiday. Anytime anyone new starts on our marketing team, I recommend that they read it. It is super important to get a better gauge on just marketing in general or PR in this entire landscape. And it's something that I wish that I read years ago when I was starting off in my career. 

What was the last show you binge-watched?

The last show that I watched is called "Severence" on Apple TV … it makes you feel on edge the entire time—if you're into suspense like that. 

At what age do you hope to retire? 

Definitely not looking to retire, I’m the type of person who will always be working. So I think anywhere that I can grow, anywhere that I can learn, specifically in marketing, is probably something that I'd be looking toward in the future.