Search for the Vice President of Marketing and Communications

November 2, 2021

Dear members of the SLU community,

As I recently announced, after more than two decades of distinguished leadership across a broad range of roles, Jeff Fowler is retiring at the end of May as Vice President of the Division of Marketing and Communications. Jeff and the talented Marcom staff always embrace the challenges of the moment, while striving to identify and adapt to the demands of the future.

Today I write to announce the search for Jeff’s successor.

This is a critically important hire for SLU. Marketing and Communications bears the primary responsibility for promoting our vision to be a global Jesuit university that is mission-focused, student and patient-centered, and research-driven, working with the people of St. Louis to reimagine, transform, and unify our city. As our academic and clinical excellence has advanced, Marketing and Communications professionals at SLU have never been more important and never faced greater requests for its expertise in communicating our good work to prospective students, faculty, staff, funders, government officials, and corporate and non-profit partners.

The focus of the Division of Marketing and Communication includes responsibility to build the appreciation for the mission-centered work of the university across the region, the nation, and beyond, promote important information within and across the organizations, partner in student recruiting and philanthropy, and ensure consistency in SLU's official images and branding.

This is an attractive opportunity for a person of vision, creativity, curiosity, energy, and action. I am confident in our ability to recruit a leader who will work alongside you, to promote our excellence with the urgency and care our environment demands.

I have assembled a diverse search committee chaired by Dr. Donna LaVoie, Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. A national search firm familiar with SLU will assist the committee in generating a diverse pool of highly qualified candidates, from which a small number of finalists will be invited to interview for the position.

The search committee will seek candidates who are passionate about their work, understand the responsibilities of the role, are wise in their decision making, and work comfortably with all stakeholders of our Catholic, Jesuit, international, urban, residential, research university. Everyone will have an opportunity to meet and review the finalists.

Thank you in advance for your support of and participation in this search.

Sincerely,

Fred P. Pestello, Ph.D.
President