Jill Austin
Austin named VUMC chief marketing officer
Marketing veteran Jill Austin, a 1988 graduate of the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management, has been named chief marketing officer for Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Most recently a consultant with Kipp and Associates in Nashville, Austin will begin her new role Jan. 2 in the 3401 West End Avenue office.
New to Vanderbilt, the Chief Marketing Officer role enhances the role held by Bill Bryant, the longtime head of marketing, who left Vanderbilt in July.
“I am really impressed with Vanderbilt's leadership position in the marketplace. I am excited about the mission of what VUMC is doing with medicine, research and education,” Austin said.
“They have multiple audiences, multiple constituencies that they work with all of the time and that kind of puzzle intrigues me. They have to speak to patients, to doctors and to the public at large … I love that type of environment.”
After receiving her M.B.A. in Marketing, Austin had a lengthy career with Nortel Networks, where she served as a vice president of Global Marketing and Sales.
She moved on to do consulting work with Kipp and Associates for the last four years, working on strategic growth initiatives for businesses.
Austin, a board member of the American Marketing Association – Nashville Chapter, was chosen for the new position over several dozen candidates from all over the country, said Joel Lee, associate vice chancellor for Communications.
In her position she will be broadly responsible for using marketing techniques to better position Vanderbilt as the preferred health care provider in the region.
“I was looking for somebody who has a broader understanding of marketing that begins with the customer but goes beyond simple marketing communications and advertising,” Lee said. “I liked her approach and liked the sense of teambuilding that I saw in her.”
“Jill comes to us with a real rich set of experiences with Nortel, successfully working their business lines. And then she has been working in consultancy and establishing a style and a brand of marketing design that we hope to have her bring to Vanderbilt and use here.”