FAMU welcomes PRNews’ 2023 Top Women in PR contender Alonda Thomas as its new Chief of Marketing and Communications, effective Sept 23.
“My goal would be to be able to work with those communicators to make sure that we are being as impactful as we can, as well as working together to have a unified message for the entire campus community,”said Thomas, a FAMU alumna that brings years of experience in higher education and media industries.
Her journey ironically begins at the Office of Marketing and Communications, where he was a student worker. Her supervisor at the time, Sharon Saunders accepted a position at North Carolina Central University.
Before leaving for her new position Saunders asked Thomas if she’d be interested in working alongside her. While waiting for a call back from a job in Miami, she ultimately decided to join Saunders at NCCU and later become her Communications Specialist.
After working at NCCU, Thomas decided to come back and attend graduate school at Florida State University to pivot from higher education to entertainment PR.
While in her graduate program she was able to intern at the BET awards in California. As an intern Thomas helped to support media outreach for the show, managing the red carpet, and helping to approve which media outlets were able to be on the red carpet.
After her graduate program she then decided to move to Atlanta where she did business-to-business PR for Edelman. Thomas then decided after some time of working for Edelman, to go back to California and work for Creative Artists Agency.
There she worked in the Speaker’s Bureau and coordinated speaking engagements for all of their
celebrity talent including Gina Davis, Gene Simmons, and Kerry Washington. In 2013, after seven years of doing PR work in California, Sharon Saunders called yet again to offer Thomas a position at FAMU to her Director of Media Relations.
Three months into her new position Saunders retired and the interim president at the time Dr. Larry Robinson decided to make Thomas the new Vice President of Communications. After leaving the university Thomas decided to go back to Atlanta where she did entertainment PR for the movie Chi-Raq with Spike Lee and the second season of Black-ish.
Soon after the President of Jackson State University called and offered her the position of Chief Communications Officer and Associate Vice President for Marketing and Communications.
Now, her return to FAMU marks a significant milestone in her career, as she continues to build on her legacy of innovation and impact on the world of Public Relations.
“I have had an opportunity to see what works and what doesn’t work in a lot of settings in the higher education landscape. And so I really feel like this is an opportunity for me to bring the best of the best practices to my alma mater.”