Ask most business leaders what drives growth and you’ll hear about market timing, strategy and execution. At Hughes Marino, the answer has always been simpler, yet much harder to replicate: people and culture. From day one with our first office to fifteen years later and the expansion across 15+ cities nationwide, that belief has never wavered. Build the right team, protect the right culture and never compromise on your values and everything else will follow. In part two to our Q&A series, we sat down with Chairman & CEO Jason Hughes and President & COO Shay Hughes for another candid conversation about what growth actually looks like from the inside: the decisions that looked wrong before they proved right, the costs nobody talks about and the things they’d never trade away no matter how big the company gets.
Q: What’s something that fueled your growth that most people would never see from the outside?
Jason: People assume growth comes from strategy decks and market timing. The truth is quieter than that. What fueled us was a decision we made early and never walked back—that we would sit on one side of the table. We represent tenants, not landlords, and we turned down a lot of revenue over the years to protect that. From the outside, it looks like a positioning choice. From the inside, it was a values choice that compounded. Clients could feel that there was no second agenda in the room, and that feeling, more than any pitch, is what built this company.
Shay: For me, it’s the unglamorous part that no one sees. We knew when we started the company that one thing would be true no matter what happens—that no one would outwork us. We also were relentless in investing in great people long before there was any proof it would pay off. We believed in people before they believed in themselves, and we kept pouring into them long before they had any success. From the outside, it can look like we simply got lucky with talent. The truth is we made a choice to invest in our team, to develop them, to champion them and to refuse to give up on anyone who shared our commitment and our values. That kind of belief compounds quietly and one day you look up and realize it built the entire company.
Q: What’s one decision that looked wrong in the moment but proved to be exactly right?
Jason: When we decided to open our first expansion office in Orange County, the timing looked indefensible—the economy, the expense, the competition. Everyone who looked at us from the outside thought we were nuts. But we’ve learned that the right people and the right culture don’t wait for the perfect quarter. We went in, and for the first stretch it was hard and it was lonely and we questioned it. What we couldn’t see yet was that the people we planted there would become some of the best of the entire company. The lesson stayed with us: you don’t bet on the market, you bet on the people, and people are almost never a mistake.
Shay: Saying no to revenue, and saying yes to the right people, when the spreadsheet would have told us to do the exact opposite. There were times we walked away from business that didn’t fit our values, and times we took a chance on someone who didn’t have the résumé but had the talent, the hunger and the character we knew we could build around. In the moment, those choices felt unconventional—we were choosing our gut over the safe path, but we have always made decisions based on our gut and it has served us well. Some of the most extraordinary members of our team are people we believed in before anyone else did, and I wouldn’t trade a single one of those “risky” bets we made.
Q: Running a company together as a family—what does that actually look like, and is there a cost you didn’t expect?
Jason: The romantic version is that we finish each other’s sentences in board meetings. The real version is that the company doesn’t stay at the office—it comes home, it sits at the dinner table, it’s there on the drive and on the vacation that was supposed to be a vacation. The cost we didn’t expect wasn’t time; we knew we’d all work extremely hard. It was learning to be partners in two different ways at once and not let the harder conversations of one bleed into the other. We’re still learning it. What we’d tell anyone doing this is that the business will always ask for more than you have—the discipline is deciding, together, what you protect.
Shay: Jason is right that the company follows us home and wherever we go, but it is challenging, rewarding and fun at the same time. While there are tradeoffs, and it’s certainly not for everyone, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It has been incredible to build a thriving company with our family, using all of our different but complementary strengths to make the company better in all aspects. And it is a huge asset that we have each other’s backs unconditionally, we value and respect each other’s opinions immensely, and we get to do something incredibly meaningful together that we are all very proud of. That is a gift I am beyond grateful for as a founder, a business leader, a wife and a mom.
Q: What’s the most common reason talented people fail to reach their potential?
Jason: It’s almost never ability. The most talented people who stall do it because they’re protecting something—a perceived reputation, a comfort, an old version of themselves that was rewarded for being the smartest one in the room. Growth requires you to be a beginner again, repeatedly, and a lot of gifted people can’t tolerate that feeling. The ones who become exceptional are the ones who stay coachable long after they’ve earned the right not to be. We’ve watched people with half the raw talent pass others simply because they never stopped asking what they were missing.
Shay: So often, it comes down to fear—especially the fear of failing in front of other people. I’ve watched incredibly talented people hold themselves back simply because they weren’t willing to potentially look foolish trying something new or really stepping up their game. The people I’ve watched soar here are the ones who give themselves permission to stumble and to keep going anyway. Talent will only take you as far as your willingness to take risks and keep going if you don’t get what you want the first time. The magic is never in avoiding the fall. It’s in how quickly you choose to get back up and try again.
Q: If Hughes Marino doubled in size over the next five years, what would you be most determined not to lose?
Jason: The feeling that this is still a family company and that culture is extremely important, no matter how many families are in it. Scale has a way of quietly trading warmth for efficiency, and you don’t notice the trade until the culture you spent 15 years building has thinned out into a logo. We’d be most determined to protect the thing that doesn’t show up on any growth chart—that someone’s first day here still feels like being let in on something, not processed into something. If we double and lose that, we didn’t grow. We just got bigger.
Shay: That every single person feels appreciated and that no one here ever becomes a number. The thing I would protect with everything I have is our culture of championing the underdog and noticing the person who has gone quiet in the room. As you scale, it is so easy to let warmth quietly slip away without even realizing it’s happening. I never want us to grow so big that we stop celebrating each other’s wins, showing up for each other’s hard days or believing in someone’s potential before they can see it in themselves. If we double in size and every person still feels like they belong to a team that cares about them, supports them and has their back, then we will have stayed true to our roots from the beginning.
Q: What’s something the other person does exceptionally well that doesn’t get enough credit?
Jason: Shay reads people in a way that can’t be taught. In a room full of numbers, she’s the one paying attention to the person who’s gone quiet, and she’s almost always right about why. People credit the company’s culture to programs and awards, but a lot of it traces back to her noticing things the rest of us miss and refusing to let them slide. It’s the least visible kind of leadership and, I’d argue, the most important.
Shay: Jason’s generous spirit. Everyone sees the dealmaker and the visionary, but what doesn’t get nearly enough credit is how genuinely he supports and celebrates other people. Behind the scenes I get to see how he takes calls from anyone on our team within seconds of them calling him no matter how busy he is, how he lights up when someone on our team wins and how quick he is to give credit to everyone else long before he would ever take any for himself. I often think he wants success for others more than they want it for themselves, mostly because he knows what is possible and believes in them long before they do. Despite his immense success, he is incredibly humble and always deflects credit for the amazing team he has coached to success.
Lightning Round Q&A
- Favorite HMism?
- Jason: Success is not an entitlement. You need to earn it every day.
- Shay: Everything matters. Literally everything.
- One word for the next chapter?
- Jason: Deeper
- Shay: Stronger
- Coffee or tea?
- Jason: Coffee
- Shay: Tea
- Early bird or night owl?
- Jason: Early bird
- Shay: Night Owl
- Strategy or execution?
- Jason: Strategy
- Shay: Execution
- Data or intuition?
- Jason: Intuition
- Shay: Intuition
- Most overrated business buzzword?
- Jason: Synergy
- Shay: Optimize
- Go-to comfort food?
- Jason: Chocolate chip cookies
- Shay: Salty dark chocolate
- Favorite way to recharge?
- Jason: Vacation to the mountains
- Shay: Vacation to the mountains too, and family dinners at our house
- Most-used emoji?
- Jason: Fist bump
- Shay: Heart
Stay tuned for our next Q&A with more insightful (and fun) questions!
