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Marissa Gencarelli
James Beard Award winner
- Discipline
- Other
i. Biography
Marissa Gencarelli holds the CEO and co-founder roles at Yoli Tortilleria in Kansas City, Missouri. In trade terms, that means the work sits at the level of direction and continuity: setting the standard, protecting the line, and keeping a company’s point of view intact as it grows. Born and raised in Sonora, Mexico, she brings a frame shaped by place, where food carries memory, practice, and home.
The Climb
Marissa Gencarelli is CEO and co-founder of Yoli Tortilleria, where she has helped shape the company into her current role today. The path here is defined by position and responsibility rather than a long paper trail of stops. From Sonora, Mexico, to Kansas City, Missouri, the movement is one of inheritance meeting enterprise. Yoli Tortilleria is the place where those forces come together, and Gencarelli’s leadership suggests the kind of steady hand needed to hold a company’s intent as it takes form. The pairing of co-founder and CEO signals both authorship and continuity. A co-founder helps establish the terms of the work from the start; a CEO carries those terms forward in daily decisions. In Gencarelli’s case, the role reads as ongoing construction: taking a company from its foundations and keeping its shape intact as it becomes part of the landscape.
Today
She serves as CEO and co-founder of the company in Kansas City, Missouri. That leadership continues in Kansas City, Missouri, where Yoli Tortilleria remains tied to her work. The point is not proximity alone, but active responsibility: she is serving as CEO and co-founder, which places her in the line of ongoing decisions, standards, and accountability that define a business from the inside. For Marissa Gencarelli, the through line is clear. Born and raised in Sonora, Mexico, she now holds the company’s top role in Kansas City, Missouri, carrying the perspective of where she comes from into where she leads. The result is a founder profile built on place, role, and continuity rather than spectacle.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Marissa
What is Marissa Gencarelli known for?
She is known as CEO and co-founder of Yoli Tortilleria in Kansas City, Missouri.
