Gillian Smith City Year

Marketing professional Gillian Smith is currently the Chief Marketing Officer for City Year, Inc. She has worked for a variety of businesses and organizations in her 20-year career. After graduating from Rollins College in 1995 with an honors bachelor of arts in political science and German, she worked as a brand manager for Coca-Cola in Germany. Returning to the United States in 1999, she briefly took a position with the Sunbeam Corporation before being hired by the Burger King Corporation as a product manager. She remained with Burger King for the next seven years in a variety of roles, including advertising manager and senior director of media and interactive, earning recognition from Advertising Age as a 2006 Woman to Watch, and from MediaPost as a 2006 Online All Star for her performance at the company. In 2007, Gillian Smith’s reputation for marketing excellence launched her into the executive ranks at Teach for America, where she served as chief marketing officer for the next four years.

In 2011, Gillian Smith joined City Year, an organization dedicated to helping students in high-need, high-poverty public schools graduate. She currently serves as City Year’s chief marketing officer, where she has conducted groundbreaking marketing campaigns using innovative strategies such as crowd sourcing and social media. City Year's recent marketing campaigns have also garnered awards, including the ANA Multicultural Award. She was also a selected as a judge for the North American Effie Awards in the spring of 2015.