Rod Ingram Sr. - VP Marketing & Communications, Akron Children’s
Rod Ingram Sr. spent seventeen years behind the cameras at WEWS NewsChannel 5 in Cleveland, overseeing newscast production, control rooms, and studios, and managing a staff of 60. He then became marketing director at the Ohio Lottery, where he describes managing a $23 million budget, developing televised game shows, and cultivating chain store accounts worth $740 million. He went on to design sweepstakes and promotions at Arrow International and sell digital marketing services for Gannett. He next moved into higher education as assistant dean for marketing and admissions at Case Western Reserve’s Weatherhead School of Management. He then spent nine years at Northeast Ohio Medical University, rising to vice president for communications and chief marketing officer and advising its president and board. Akron Children’s hired him in February 2024 to lead advertising, marketing, and internal and external communications. He holds a finance degree and an MBA from Cleveland State.
Stephanie Berry - VP Marketing & Brand Management, Akron/Summit Convention & Visitors Bureau
Akron’s pitch to visitors, as Stephanie Berry has described it, is the rare combination of a city center with a national park next door. She took over marketing for the Akron/Summit Convention & Visitors Bureau in March 2023 and runs it hands-on: she writes the annual marketing plan, aligns it with the sales team, and designs the bureau’s ads, banners, and signage herself. She is also the contact for its destination development grants, which support tourism partners and visitor experiences. Her route to tourism ran through health care and philanthropy. For six years she directed marketing for AxessPointe Community Health Centers, building patient personas from demographic data and adding billboards, bus ads, and targeted mailers to reach new patients. She then spent more than a year as vice president of marketing and brand management at United Way of Summit & Medina, serving as its primary media spokesperson.
Katie Scott - VP Marketing & Brand Management, United Way of Summit & Medina
Katie Scott joined United Way of Summit & Medina in 2018 as a marketing manager, running social media and photo and video projects, and she has been promoted four times since. She moved into digital content, then took over creative direction and the organization’s digital-first content strategy, including Google Ads, SEO, and its donor engagement work. In 2025 she became associate vice president of brand strategy, and in July 2026 vice president of marketing and brand management. She was part of the team behind United Way’s 2025 Impact Book, which won a Silver ADDY in AAF-Akron’s 2026 awards. Before Akron she worked remotely for Basic Invite, a Utah-based online stationery company, running its digital campaigns, influencer relationships, and editorial content for wedding and lifestyle blogs.
Lisa Craig - Director of Communication & Marketing, University of Akron College of Arts & Sciences
“Collaboration is my favorite word,” Lisa Craig writes, and she says she does her best work in fast-paced environments with modest resources. Since December 2021 she has led communication and marketing for the University of Akron’s Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences, where she turns faculty, student, and alumni stories into content across print, digital, social media, and events. She spent nearly seven years before that as a media relations specialist for the university, pitching stories to reporters and putting faculty experts on radio and television when news broke. Her career started in theater. For nearly five years she was communications and public relations manager at Cleveland Play House, running media campaigns for every production and for its MFA acting program with Case Western Reserve.
Audrey Houseman - Marketing & Communications Director, Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park
Audrey Houseman describes herself as a stalwart champion for Cuyahoga Valley National Park. She joined its conservancy as philanthropy director in May 2025 and moved to lead marketing and communications three months later. The two jobs suit a career that has moved between fundraising and persuasion. At United Way of Summit County she rose to vice president of corporate and community engagement, leading development work she says raised more than $10 million a year. She then managed a successful first-time city council campaign and spent nearly six years at the Akron agency TRIAD, rising to vice president of clients and campaigns, where she says she developed strategy for more than 75 political candidates and ballot initiatives along with nonprofit and corporate clients. She is a Greater Akron Chamber 30 for the Future honoree, won AAF-Akron’s Client Service Award, and serves on the boards of the Akron Civic Theatre and Greenleaf Family Center.
Elena Bell - Director of Marketing & Events, Akron Zoo
In 2017, Elena Bell implemented a sensory inclusion program at the Akron Zoo, designed to make visits easier for guests with sensory needs. She still leads it, trains every zoo staff member on it, and has kept developing it, including adding a communication board for visitors who use augmentative and alternative communication. She first came to the zoo as an intern, then spent a year and a half in public relations at Akron Children’s, where she proposed and launched the hospital’s official Instagram account. She returned to the zoo in December 2014 and has been promoted three times, becoming director of marketing and events in January 2025. She is the zoo’s primary media spokesperson, runs its social channels from Facebook to TikTok, manages its marketing budget and media buying, and oversees special events and the revenue they bring in.
James Buckey - Director of Marketing, Akron Symphony Orchestra
When the Akron Symphony launched its first beer in 2024, a blonde ale called Beerthoven’s Blonde brewed with Hoppin’ Frog Brewery, James Buckey described it as a way to strengthen the orchestra’s connection with local residents. He has been its director of marketing since December 2023, handling strategy and designing much of its print and digital material himself. The design skills came first. He spent more than ten years at Staples, rising from a part-time technology sales job to general manager and leading print and marketing initiatives across multiple stores. He then taught graphic design and coordinated digital arts and music programs at the Wayne Center for the Arts. He’s also a working artist. His piece Blimp City 2 combines symphony rehearsal photography with Akron landmarks, and three of his works were chosen for the city’s traffic-control-box art project. He sits on the board of White Rabbit Galleries in Barberton.
Alexandra Houser Vukoder - Chief Advancement & Marketing Officer, Akron Art Museum
Alexandra Houser Vukoder spent nearly nineteen years at the American Cancer Society, moving from cancer control manager in Ohio to public relations director for the state, to senior media relations roles for a two-state division and the national headquarters, and finally to director of communications and marketing for a seven-state region. Among her career highlights, she counts her work on Ohio’s smoke-free workplace effort, her support for the growth of the NFL’s Crucial Catch initiative, and her leadership of parts of the organization’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Akron Art Museum hired her as director of advancement in 2021 and promoted her within a year. She now leads advancement, communications, visitor experience, events, rentals, and retail, working with the CEO and board on strategy. She also writes the Grapevine column for the Bath Country Journal.
Tracy Burt - COO & VP Marketing & Communications, Akron Community Foundation
Tracy Burt’s favorite part of working at the Akron Community Foundation is knowing it can help philanthropists do good in the community, whatever their passion. She joined in 2013 as senior director of marketing and communications after nearly six years as an account director at Akhia Communications, where she built integrated marketing plans for business and consumer clients. She became vice president of marketing and communications in 2019. In June 2026 the foundation also named her chief operating officer, adding oversight of facilities, human resources, and information technology to a remit that still includes marketing strategy, external communications, and brand stewardship. Few marketing leaders end up running the operations side of their organizations as well. She has a public relations degree from Kent State.
Shannon Piggott - Senior Marketing & Communications Director, The Shaw JCC of Akron
At iDesign, the home organization brand, Shannon Piggott says she grew its Instagram following from zero to 250,000. She started there in SEO, then ran its social channels and an influencer program of up to 50 creators, coordinated its partnerships with the Columbus Blue Jackets and Pittsburgh Penguins, and organized a home-organizing makeover with Blue Jackets defenseman David Savard. The Shaw JCC of Akron hired her in June 2020 as marketing and communications director, and in January 2026 she became senior director, now setting marketing strategy for the Schultz Campus agencies, including the JCC and JewishAkron. Her work covers fitness and aquatics, youth programs, early childhood education, and membership. She also built a Community Ambassador Program, which recruits young adults to represent the JCC socially, digitally, and in the community.
A City’s Civic Marketers
Almost everyone on this list markets something Akron would be poorer without: care for sick children, a national park, a zoo, an orchestra, an art museum, the foundations and charities that fund the rest. The jobs reward people who can do several things at once, and these careers show it. A zoo marketer runs an accessibility program. A symphony marketer designs the posters and makes art for the streets. A foundation’s marketing chief now runs its operations too. Akron’s marketers have built careers around the city’s institutions, and the city is the better for it.