Dean’s Leadership Council

Jeanne Mitchell spent almost 35 years at Mobil and Exxon Corporations and led the worldwide communications for the companies to combine in 1999. Most recently she served as Senior Director, Federal Relations in ExxonMobil’s Washington, D.C., office. She was responsible for contacts and advocacy with the United States government across a vast spectrum of energy and business issues. She has been cited repeatedly by Hill publications and The Washingtonian as one of the top energy lobbyists over the past two decades.

While having a desire to stay at the university, she knew she needed to get experience managing a large event, so she went to Washington, DC, to work for the Future Farmers of America staffing their annual convention for 500,000.  Shortly afterward, she returned to Florida to be the Director of Communications at the Florida Sugar Cane League.  The portfolio was massive including special events, media, corporate and community relations as well as state and federal relations and legislation.

While presenting at the Florida Public Relations Association’s annual meeting, big oil was watching and hired her.  Jeanne O. Mitchell spent almost 35 years at Mobil and Exxon Corporations and led the worldwide communications for the companies to combine in 1999.  Most recently she served as Senior Director, Federal Relations in ExxonMobil’s Washington, D.C., office. She was responsible for contacts and advocacy with the United States government across a vast spectrum of energy and business issues. She has been cited repeatedly by Hill publications and The Washingtonian as one of the top energy lobbyists over the past two decades.

Previously she served as Global Communications Manager based in Irving, Texas, where she led the company’s worldwide corporate communications, including the first-ever Summary Annual Report and Corporate Citizenship Report.  Her public affairs expertise encompasses government relations, issues management, media relations, philanthropy and Foundation management, community relations, and crisis response. She was awarded the 2001 Telly Award for “Regardless of Where,” a documentary of the Hoover-Diana offshore oil well construction and in 1996 was awarded a Silver Anvil Award by the Public Relations Society of America for the “Friendly Serve Academy.”  Mitchell is a graduate of Leadership Florida, Leadership Texas, and Leadership America.  She is also a recipient of the prestigious Athena Award.

Desiring new challenges, she currently serves as president of Redwing Design and Construction Company which she founded with her husband. She also serves as a partner in Redwing Ranch, a cow-calf operation in central Florida.  Jeanne lives in Palmetto, Florida, and has two sons.

She has served as Chairman of the National Energy Resources Organization as well as on the Boards of the National Capitol Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America, the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, and the University of Florida Foundation.

Alyssa Apple is a versatile communications professional with extensive experience producing strategic media relations and internal campaigns and events for award-winning content, high-profile talent, and leadership.

Over her career she has worked in media relations for companies like ABC news, where she provides strategic counsel and program execution for clients, including Disney/ABC Television, Tribeca Enterprise/Tribeca Film Festival, Live from Lincoln Center, Lincoln Center Education, and many more.

For several years after graduation, Berl was a reporter/editor at a community newspaper outside Washington. He served for two years in the U.S. Army on the staff of an Army magazine, freelanced, and then went into aerospace journalism, as an editor at Pilot magazine, and then Executive Editor of Flying magazine, based in New York City. In 1985, he joined his family’s broadcasting business, and through 2013, owned and operated up to six different communications properties, including two ABC Network television affiliates.

On a contract basis for a period during the 1990s, he was a writer/producer for aerospace documentaries in a collaboration between Discovery, Time-Life and McGraw-Hill that aired on A&E and Discovery.

He has served on several boards, including the first board of the newly independent student newspaper at George Washington University.  He also served for 10 years on the board and as an officer of Teatown Lake Reservation, a nonprofit environmental education center and 1000-acre nature preserve near New York City.  He was also on the National Council of George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs.

His UF connections go back to his high school days in Orlando, Florida with his family’s operation of WFTV Channel 9 in Orlando in the 1960s-70s and their initiation and support of programs tied to UF’s College of Journalism and Communications. He was named an honorary alumnus of the College of Journalism and Communications in 2017. He has served on the College of Journalism and Communications Dean’s Leadership Council since 2017.

Michael is the bestselling author of thirty-nine novels and one work of non-fiction. With over eighty-five million copies of his books sold worldwide and translated into forty-five foreign languages, he is one of the most successful writers working today. His very first novel, The Black Echo, won the prestigious Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 1992. His crime fiction career was honored with the Diamond Dagger from the CWA in 2018, and the Outstanding Contribution To Crime Writing Award at the 2022, and the Grand Master title from the Mystery Writers of America in 2023.

Michael decided to become a writer after discovering the books of Raymond Chandler while attending the University of Florida. Once he decided on this direction, he chose a major in journalism and a minor in creative writing — a curriculum in which one of his teachers was novelist Harry Crews.

After graduating in 1980, Connelly worked at newspapers in Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, primarily specializing in the crime beat.  In Fort Lauderdale he wrote about police and crime during the height of the murder and violence wave that rolled over South Florida during the so-called cocaine wars. In 1986, he and two other reporters spent several months interviewing survivors of a major airline crash. They wrote a magazine story on the crash and the survivors which was later short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. The magazine story also moved Connelly into the upper levels of journalism, landing him a job as a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times, one of the largest papers in the country, and bringing him to the city of which his literary hero, Chandler, had written.

Michael is the bestselling author of thirty-nine novels and one work of non-fiction. With over eighty-five million copies of his books sold worldwide and translated into forty-five foreign languages, he is one of the most successful writers working today. His very first novel, The Black Echo, won the prestigious Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 1992. In 2002, Clint Eastwood directed and starred in the movie adaptation of Connelly’s 1998 novel, Blood Work. In March 2011, the movie adaptation of his #1 bestselling novel, The Lincoln Lawyer, hit theaters worldwide starring Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller. His most recent New York Times bestsellers include Resurrection Walk, Desert Star, The Dark Hours, The Law Of Innocence, The Night Fire, and Dark Sacred Night. Michael’s crime fiction career was honored with the Diamond Dagger from the CWA in 2018, and the Outstanding Contribution To Crime Writing Award at the 2022 Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, England, and the Grand Master title from the Mystery Writers of America in 2023.

Michael is the executive producer of Bosch and Bosch: Legacy, two Amazon Studios original drama series based on his bestselling character Harry Bosch, starring Titus Welliver. These both stream on Prime Video and Amazon Freevee. He is the executive producer of The Lincoln Lawyer on Netflix, starring Manuel Garcia-Rulfo as Mickey Haller. He is the creator and host of the podcasts Murder Book and The Wonderland Murders & The Secret History Of Hollywood. He is the executive producer of the documentary films, Sound Of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story and Tales of the American. He spends his time in California and Florida.

Allison Johnson is a global business leader and marketing expert with experience working with CEOs at some of the world’s most iconic companies to help lead major business transitions that drove transformational growth.

At IBM in the mid-90s, she helped develop and launch the company’s e-business strategy, accelerating IBM’s shift from hardware to software and services. At Apple during the Steve Job’s era, she built and led a world-class, in-house global marketing communications team where she helped launch some of the most iconic products and marketing campaigns of our time.

At the height of the browser battles, she joined internet pioneer Netscape, and helped reposition the company through its pivot to focus on its website and business software.

She worked with Carly Fiorina at HP in the early 2000s, to help lead the company’s $25 billion acquisition of Compaq Computer in support of HP’s bid to become the world’s largest personal computer maker. At Apple during the Steve Job’s era, Allison built and led a world-class, in-house global marketing communications team where she helped launch some of the most iconic products and marketing campaigns of our time.

She partnered with Jack Dorsey in 2011 to build a hybrid marketing and venture capital studio to accelerate product/market fit for startups including Twitter, Square, Braintree/Venmo, Impossible Foods, and GoFundMe, among others.

In 2019, she joined PayPal as EVP and CMO to lead the transformation of its global marketing function. And in 2021, she was hired as CMO at Enphase Energy to help accelerate the global transition to a renewable energy future. She graduated from University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications in 1983 with a Bachelor of Science degree. A lifelong lover of the arts, she serves on the Board of Trustees at SFJAZZ and various SFMOMA committees. She resides in San Francisco, CA.

Clifford (Cliff) E. Marks is the owner and founder of strategic media and marketing company, CMarksCo, LLC. Previously, he was president of National CineMedia (NCM), LLC, and National CineMedia, Inc. Before joining NCM, he was a 14-year veteran of ESPN/ABC Sports, where, as senior vice president, he oversaw its $2.0 billion sales organization. He was instrumental in developing vertically integrated advertising packages for clients across multiple platforms, including ABC Sports programming, ESPN, ESPN.com, ESPN magazine, ESPN radio and ESPNZone restaurants.

An advertising, marketing, and sales professional for more than 30 years, Cliff leads marketing, sales and advertising and affiliate partnerships divisions and is based in New York City.

Cliff joined NCM as an original member of the company’s leadership team in 2002, when it was then the Regal Entertainment Group media subsidiary known as Regal CineMedia Corporation. He was named president of sales and marketing when Regal CineMedia became National CineMedia in 2005 with the addition of AMC and later Cinemark as founding member theater circuits. Cliff was the visionary behind the creation and evolution of NCM’s groundbreaking movie pre-show, FirstLook— the first to combine entertainment content and advertising — turning cinema into not only a powerful sight-sound-and-motion medium, but a key premium video option in today’s fragmented media landscape.

Before joining NCM, Cliff was a 14-year veteran of ESPN/ABC Sports, where, as senior vice president, he oversaw its $2.0 billion sales organization. He was instrumental in developing vertically integrated advertising packages for clients across multiple platforms, including ABC Sports programming, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic, ESPNews, ESPN.com, ESPN magazine, ESPN radio and ESPNZone restaurants. From 1986 through 1989, Cliff was an executive at The Nashville Network.  He began his career at prominent New York advertising agencies Young & Rubicam (1985-86) and BBDO (1983-85). Cliff’s first media sales job was at the Independent Florida Alligator where he sold for three years from 1981-84.  Cliff received a Bachelor of Science in Advertising from UF’s College of Journalism and Communications in 1984. He currently serves as a director on the Executive Board of the Screen Advertising World Association (SAWA) and serves on the marketing committee of the International 3D Society.

He has also served several terms as president and chairman of the Cinema Advertising Council (CAC).  Cliff was honored as a Hall of Fame member in the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications in 2010.

Rebecca Patterson is a globally recognized investor and macro-economic researcher with more than 25 years’ experience studying how politics and policy intersect with economic trends to drive financial markets. 

Most recently, Rebecca was Chief Investment Strategist for Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund. In that role, Rebecca shaped the firm’s research agenda across geographies and asset classes, oversaw development of new strategies to help large institutional clients solve their most pressing challenges, and shared her insights via Bridgewater’s Daily Observations publication. As a member of Bridgewater’s Executive, Commercial and Investment committees, Rebecca helped the firm successfully transition from its founder, Ray Dalio, to its next generation of leadership. 

Previously, Rebecca was Chief Investment Officer of Bessemer Trust, overseeing $85 billion in client assets. During her time there, Rebecca was a member of the firm’s Management Committee and helped launch their Diversity & Inclusion Committee. Before joining Bessemer in 2012, Rebecca spent more than 15 years at JPMorgan, working in the US, Europe and Asia in a variety of senior research, trading and investment roles. Rebecca’s transition to finance came after several years working as a journalist, covering financial markets, policy and politics in the U.S. and Europe.

Rebecca is currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission and the Economic Club of New York. She has served on the New York Federal Reserve’s Investor Advisory and Foreign Exchange committees. She also serves on the University of Florida’s Investment Corporation Advisory Board and was Chair of the Board for three years. She currently chairs the Council for Economic Education and is a member of the board of the Bretton Woods Committee. Rebecca’s insights are frequently sought after by the media; she co-hosted the first-ever television program dedicated to foreign-exchange markets: CNBC’s “Money in Motion.”

Rebecca also holds an M.B.A. from New York University and an M.A. in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. She was included in American Banker’s list of Most Powerful Women in Finance for six consecutive years and was named to Forbes’ 50 over 50 in 2022. Rebecca joined the University of Florida’s Journalism College Hall of Fame in 2024.

Leigh Radford is an experienced Board Member, retired Senior Vice President of Procter & Gamble and Founder of P&G Ventures, an early-stage start-up studio within Procter & Gamble. Known for her business turnarounds, disruptive product innovation and expertise in brand building, she is recognized as one of the industry’s most innovative, consumer driven business leaders and world-class brand builders.

Over her 30-year career at P&G, Leigh has built multiple billion+ dollar businesses across various geographies and categories, including Skin Care, Personal Cleansing and Health Care. Brands under her leadership have delivered significant and sustained business growth including OLAY becoming the #1 Global Skincare Brand, VICKS achieving $1 billion+ status and the expansion of SAFEGUARD into new markets across Eastern Europe, China, and Southeast Asia.

Presently, Leigh is an active Board Member of the E. W. Scripps Company (NASDAQ: SSP), Wildwood Ventures, a start-up venture arm of the VF Corporation (NYSE: VFC); FAST Studios, a media start-up company focused on fast growing connected TV marketplace, Heaven Hill, Inc., the largest family-owned and operated bourbon distillery, and Goodwill Industries International, a $7B non-profit 501(c) (3)  organization focused on providing programs for people with barriers to employment.

As Founder of P&G Ventures, Leigh obtained 6+ years of Board experience serving as advisor to the board and CEO in the newly created ventures space. During her tenure, Leigh step-changed P&G’s launch of new brands, including OPTE, a Digital Skin Care device and winner of Fast Company’s World’s Most Innovative Companies (2020) and ZEVO, a disruptive line of insect control products safe for children and pets. In 2021, P&G Ventures was recognized by Fast Company as one of the Top 20 Best Workplaces for Innovators.

Leigh’s accomplishments have been recognized across the industry, including Brand Innovators’ Top 100 Women to Watch, OTC Marketer of the Year and Ad Age Top 50 Marketers. Leigh is also a recipient of the Harley Procter Award, given to less than 1% of Top Marketers at P&G.

Prior to Procter & Gamble, Leigh began her career in the airline business working for Eastern and Continental Airlines across multiple sales and management positions. Leigh received a Bachelor of Science in Advertising and Business Administration from the University of Florida and an MBA from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University.

Phil Stambaugh’s career in sports communications spans more than 30 years, including 26 years with the PGA TOUR. Prior to that, he worked in communications for a major collegiate athletic conference and spent two years in media relations with the Atlanta Hawks in the NBA. He was also a member of media teams for the LA Olympic Organizing Committee in 1984, assisting with Swimming/Diving, Super Bowl XXXIX in Jacksonville, and NCAA Basketball Tournament First/Second Round Games in Jacksonville in 2019.

He holds a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Florida and a Master in Sports Administration degree from Ohio University’s prestigious post-graduate program. He was also a member of media teams for the LA Olympic Organizing Committee in 1984, assisting with Swimming/Diving, Super Bowl XXXIX in Jacksonville, and NCAA Basketball Tournament First/Second Round Games in Jacksonville in 2019. After serving as a guest lecturer in Flagler College’s Sport Management department for two years, Stambaugh was an adjunct professor on the faculty, teaching an Introduction to Communication in Sport class at the school for three years.

Keith R. Tribble is a prominent figure in the sports and entertainment industry, serving as the founder and Managing Partner of Tricom Management Group and the Managing Partner/COO of Brentwood Partners.

These multi-dimensional consulting firms advise clients in various sports and entertainment ventures. Keith primarily focuses on revenue generation, partnerships, brand enhancement, fan engagement, creative content production, digital eSports development, coaching, and C-suite executive search solutions. With over 40 years of experience in college athletics, private business, and non-profit management, Keith brings a sharp vision for the future of sports and entertainment.

Keith has enjoyed a successful career in athletic administration and business. He served as Executive Vice President and Director of Athletics for the University of Central Florida Athletic Association, CEO for the Orange Bowl Committee, senior associate Director of Athletics for UNLV, Executive Director for the Blockbuster Bowl and Las Vegas Bowl, Director of Event Management for Raycom Management Group, and Associate Director of Athletics for the University of Florida.

Keith’s leadership prowess extends beyond the sports and entertainment industry. As the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Jackson Health Foundation in Miami, he spearheaded fundraising efforts that secured over 60M dollars in charitable gifts. Over his forty-year career, he has raised a staggering 300 M, a testament to his exceptional fundraising abilities.

Keith’s commitment to community is a cornerstone of his professional life. He serves on the 100 Black Men of South Florida and the University of Florida Foundation Boards. His speaking engagements at local and national business and athletic conferences further underline his dedication to community engagement. His selfless contributions to the community were recognized by the Orange Bowl Committee, which honored him with the Trailblazer Community Award. This prestigious accolade celebrates the most accomplished leaders civically and philanthropically.

Keith’s professional achievements have earned him widespread recognition. He was named one of Black Enterprise magazine’s 50 Most Powerful Blacks in Sports, one of the Most Influential Minorities in Sports, and one of the 20 Most Powerful People in Sports by Sports Illustrated magazine. Miami’s Legacy magazine also acknowledged his contributions to healthcare, recognizing him as one of the Most Influential African American Leaders in Healthcare.

Tribble attended the University of Florida and played offensive guard for three bowl teams. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in journalism (public relations and marketing). He was named to the University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame in 2011 and the College of Journalism and Communications Hall of Fame in 2007. Keith and his wife, Terri, have a daughter, Carlyn, and a son Kyle.

Dawne Widener Burrows is founder and president of Widener Research (2001 – present), a consulting firm that specializes in conducting qualitative research. In 1987, she founded and was president of Widener Burrows & Associates, Inc., a full-service market research firm (which she sold in 1998). She is an accomplished market researcher, focus group facilitator and strategic planner.

In her 30-year career, she has conducted both qualitative and quantitative research for many leading U.S. and international companies, as well as for many non-profit organizations and associations. Dawne is a specialist in advertising and marketing research, which includes branding/positioning research, new product development, ad testing, website content development and usability, and customer/member satisfaction research. Some of her most interesting and visible research work has been for “got milk?,” and National Public Radio (fundraising research). Other major clients have included British Aerospace, the US Department of Labor, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Regions Bank, Maryland Public Television, Johns Hopkins Medical Centers and MedStar Health. Prior to starting her own firm in 1987, she was a partner at a national health care market research firm, and before that, for 7 years, VP, Research Director at DDB Needham, an international advertising agency.

Dawne served two terms as President, Marketing Research Association, Mid-Atlantic region. She has also had long-standing associations with the American Marketing Association (AMA) and Qualitative Research Consultants Assn. (QRCA). Dawne is the past Chair of the UF CJC Advertising Advisory Council, a founding contributor to The Agency at UF, and a loyal Gator (PR/JRN 1976).