BACKGROUND
How do our gifts and passions outside of work inform the rest of life, bringing wholeness not only to the soul, but to all spheres of life when God is authoring our story?
It’s a question worth pondering, and that’s something Marlon Webb, a Manager of Government Consulting for KSM (an accounting and auditing firm headquartered in Indy with locations in Evansville, Fort Wayne, Cincinnati, and New York), has spent some time doing.
Not only is Marlon a tested and talented economic development consultant, he is also a gifted gospel pianist, playing in church since age 12. For many years, in addition to church, he also played jazz, weddings, and other engagements before deciding this year to solely focus on playing in church versus dividing his time between the other genres. Marlon is passionate about faith and the piano, and even at almost 36 (March 28!), with a family and busy career, he makes time to practice almost every day.
Reorienting his focus “has been great,” he says, “I have more time for sure, but am also prioritizing God first, then allowing other things to orient around that.”
His passion for music was why he never got involved in sports as a young person growing up in Gary, Indiana, instead diving into several years of classical lessons, then decades of on-the-job ear training. In services Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the young pianist had little time for throwing a ball of any sort.
Critical to his ear training was not only what was happening at the keys, but what was happening around him as the worship service unfolded. He became a deep listener, attuned to the environment – and those gifts and skills have followed him into the workplace, his family, and other spheres of life.
Marlon graduated from Wirt High School in Gary, and attended IU Bloomington planning to major in piano performance, only to quickly see that he didn’t want to monetize his passion, but had a heart for building and giving back to the community. Growing up in Gary, he had observed firsthand how shrinking cities need help, while at the same time experiencing the positive impact of his own large family – five siblings, sixteen sets of aunts and uncles, and dozens of cousins – who taught him the value of community.
“My own family is one of the biggest things that shaped my perspective on community,” he says. “Having people you can rely on and having them around to work out conflict, or just have fun, with taught me a lot.”
His IU advisor introduced him to arts management, essentially nonprofit management with a focus on arts organizations, and a few years later he moved more squarely into economic development, and, after taking enough electives around local government and public management, he was encouraged to begin his master’s in economic development even while a senior at IU. Ultimately, he received a Bachelor of Science in Arts Management and a Master of Science in Public Affairs, and has also become a licensed real estate broker in Indiana.
Several weeks before graduation, Marlon still didn’t have a job, and so accepted an internship at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, a “happenstance” that changed the trajectory of his life toward the city he now calls home.
After his internship, which focused on community development, he was offered a job at the Indy Chamber on the team of Develop Indy. Where his college training had focused more on numbers crunching and the data behind the why, at the Chamber he began to enjoy resource connecting, and finding and filling gaps in economic development. After five-and-a-half years there, he spent three years in real estate development consulting, then returned to the Chamber for another three years, this time with a focus on nine, and later ten counties in Indiana.
“We weren’t just focused on the businesses seeking to expand into our region, but also on ensuring that communities had the right things in place to attract certain industries, and adding amenities to communities that were desirable for incoming businesses, including some international partners,” he says.
He enjoys the Indianapolis market because it has offered him so much opportunity to be hands on in different projects, unlike opportunities that might exist in larger markets.
Now at KSM, he has seen his giftedness in worship settings with creativity, flexibility, and deep listening come into play as he helps government clients at local, county, state, and federal levels gain efficiencies for their projects, programs, grants, and public funding to maximize impact. His approach combines technical precision with creative thinking about economic growth and community development – much like his skill in worship has been born out of technical as well as creative expertise.
“When there’s an issue or opportunity at work, I can be creative and find solutions, chart a path, and think outside the box,” he says. “And I also use a similar skillset to bring people together to work toward solutions. That’s crucial in economic development – being creative but willing to learn, and being attuned to what’s going on in a community so you can make connections. I’m passionate about that.”
Marlon and his wife, Shayla, parent Zipporah and MJ, and are active in an Assemblies of God church locally, where they were drawn by the expository teaching. There, he leads a men’s group called “33, the Series” about authentic manhood, and also has a hand in Shayla’s business in Carmel, an aromatherapy spa called The AromaRoom.
Married just six years, the two have walked together through much, including a health scare for Shayla who had two brain surgeries to remove one (thankfully) benign tumor in 2023. An attorney by trade, Shayla started The AromaRoom as she began to look at life and health differently as part of her recovery.
“The process of relearning how to walk, drive, and climb stairs was humbling and life-changing,” she says. “I knew I needed a space that encouraged deep, purposeful breathing and supported healing from the inside out. The AromaRoom became my answer—a place to pause, reconnect, and find balance.”
Somehow Marlon finds bits of time to connect with several friend groups, including one of musicians, and he currently serves on the boards of Crooked Creek Community Development Corporation, Intend Indiana (also on its Affordable Homes Committee), Leadership Hendricks County, and the American Piano Awards, which conducts alternating classical and jazz competitions nationwide concluding in finals in Indy the first week of April.
WEBB'S IDEAS FOR A BETTER INDY
- LOOK FOR MICRO TOUCH WITH MACRO IMPACT. “I used to think the process of making meaningful connections with people just took too long,” he says, “but C7 is a perfect example of the kind of place where you can make connections that multiply surprisingly fast, and find ways to open doors for people, their families, communities, and jobs, and help them take another step. That goes a long way.”
- GATHER WITH LIKE-MINDED SOULS. “It’s been great, in a professional setting like C7, to see so many businessmen gather to share their faith. It’s impacted my own ability and approach for sharing my faith more organically and helping people understand how and why I respond to certain things the way I do. C7 has been God’s way of showing me, ‘you have no reason not to share me!’”
- REFOCUS AROUND WHAT’S IMPORTANT NOW. One thing he’s been learning at church is to refocus his life around the acronym WIN, for “what’s important now?” It has helped him shed some good, but not as important things, in order to be more fruitful and faithful to what God has called him to.
MARLON WEBB TRIVIA
Favorite hobby besides work? Playing piano
Go-to snack & beverage? Peanut M&Ms and a Diet Coke
Favorite restaurant, locally? Anything of the Cunningham Group
Favorite places for a vacation? "Wherever my wife wants to go!"
Secret Dream? “Make sure I steward well what God has blessed me with: family, job, church.”
Please reach out and connect with Marlon at MarlonMWebb@gmail.com.
