Advisory Board

Terri Dean
Advisory Board Chair
Retired, Sr. Vice President - Global Communications
Verizon Business

Terri Dean retired in late 2008 as the senior vice president of global communications for Verizon Business, a global provider of advanced communications and information technology (IT) solutions to enterprise businesses and to Federal, State and Local governments. Over the course of her thirty-one year career at Verizon, she held positions of increasing responsibility, acquiring expertise in finance, marketing, sales, operations, corporate philanthropy, and internal and external communications.

Ms. Dean has been featured in print publications including the National Black MBA magazine and in a special edition of Profiles in Diversity Journal as a “Woman Worth Watching.” She is a member of the Executive Leadership Council, an organization representing the most senior African American corporate executives in Fortune 500 companies. Ms. Dean is the Vice Chair of the Board of Visitors of the Divinity School at Duke University. In addition, she serves as vice president of strategy and execution for the Board of Directors of The Ivy Legacy Foundation, as chairman of the Trustee Ministry at Mt. Zion Baptist Church of Germantown, and as chairman of the Advisory Board of the Ron Brown Scholar Program.

Ms. Dean was honored by the Harlem Branch of the YMCA with its “Black Achiever in Industry Award” for her career accomplishments. She is a recipient of the Chatham College Cornerstone Award for Excellence in Business and the Citizenship Award presented to her by Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., of which she is a member. For a five year period, she represented Verizon as the Executive Sponsor for the Atlanta University Center and created an outreach initiative that resulted in Verizon hiring over sixty undergraduate and graduate students from Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, and Spelman College. In recognition for her accomplishments as a corporate communications leader and successful executive, Ms. Dean is the subject of a case study entitled “Communicating with an Enterprise Perspective” that was taught in August 2009 at the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business.

Ms. Dean received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Chatham College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She resides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with her husband, Rick. They are the parents of two daughters, one a public relations professional in Washington, D.C. and the other a junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.