Texas A&M University Welcomes New Vice President And Chief Advertising and marketing and Communications Officer

R. Ethan Braden has been named vice president and main advertising and communications officer for Texas A&M University.


Purdue University

Texas A&M University Interim President Mark A. Welsh III announced Wednesday that model strategist R. Ethan Braden has been appointed to provide as vice president and chief marketing and advertising and communications officer.

Braden will make the transfer from Purdue University in Indiana in which he served in management positions for the past 5 yrs, half of which ended up spent as govt vice president, as nicely as main marketing and communications officer for equally Purdue and its on-line college for operating grownups, Purdue International.

In an email despatched to pupils, college and employees, Welsh stated he seems to be forward to performing with Braden to build a “collaborative eyesight that will best serve A&M, our mission and our students for a long time to come.”

“Ethan will leverage his abilities and intensive practical experience to amplify the university’s national prominence and to aid us more encourage the extraordinary points happening throughout our campuses each individual working day,” Welsh wrote to the Aggie group.

Braden delivers to Texas A&M a monitor report of effectively boosting the standing not just of an academic institution, but also recognition in the company realm, together with when he worked in management positions for much more than 10 decades at Eli Lilly and Co.

“I’ve liked my time at Purdue College, such as the award-successful marketing crew we have built and amazing perform it has contributed,” Braden explained. “I strive to construct models and groups that men and women love and have confidence in. And you only want to select new chances where by there is terrific leadership, tradition and a lot of clay to mould anything beautiful. As my spouse and children and I embark on our upcoming adventure, nowhere has a lot more opportunity ‘clay’ than Texas A&M today, with its legendary manufacturer, avid Aggie alumni and supporter base, and Standard Welsh as leader.”

In his different positions, Braden played a pivotal role in orchestrating internet marketing and conversation procedures that propelled the entities for which he worked into the national highlight. Between a handful of of his accolades:

  • Past thirty day period, Braden was named Content material Marketer of the Calendar year by Written content Promoting Institute, when his staff was a finalist for a two-minute video showcasing the life span of instructional chances obtainable to college students and garnering far more than 29 million sights on YouTube in the last 11 months.
  • Purdue University has been named a single of Quickly Corporation magazine’s Makes That Subject for a few years in a row, the only college on the record with renowned brands this kind of as Nike, McDonald’s, Ford, 3M and YETI, a recognition for companies and corporations that “authentically converse their mission and ideals and give people today compelling explanations to care about them.”
  • As a end result of rising brand consciousness and recognition more than the previous 5 several years, Purdue University was not too long ago ranked the No. 10 most notable and recognized college worldwide in the Global College Visibility (GUV) rankings, forward of institutions these as the University of Cambridge, Yale University and UCLA, and No. 3 amid U.S. community universities.
  • In 2020, Braden was named Marketer of the Year for Larger Education by the American Marketing and advertising Affiliation (AMA). That identical yr, Braden’s staff was named Marketing and advertising Staff of the Yr for Increased Education by the AMA.

Welsh explained a person of Braden’s to start with responsibilities will be to immediately get up to velocity on the advertising and marketing and communications centralization endeavours to day and the suggestions from the fast-seem evaluation.

That 44-website page assessment examined a massive realignment of educational packages and models, as well as the restructuring of operational features, all of which were initiated two years ago by A&M’s earlier administration.

Constructing groups on the virtues of empowerment, optimism, excellence and regard is a guiding principle for Braden, who explained: “We go to start with, always believing we can and are billed to enact good effect and modify. We produce fantastic, emotion-stuffed perform. And we will do it all with care for ourselves, every single other, our colleagues, associates, audiences, brand name and institution.”

Braden also has expertise in the classroom: He teaches personalized branding to Division I pupil-athletes in Purdue’s Optimizing Private Manufacturer and Image class, which is a partnership involving Purdue’s Mitch Daniels University of Business enterprise and Purdue Athletics to proactively equip students to navigate new NCAA guidelines that let them to revenue from their title, image and likeness (NIL).

Braden graduated from Willamette College with a Bachelor of Arts in economics and Spanish. He attained his MBA from the College of Notre Dame.