R. Ethan Braden Appointed Vice President and Chief Marketing and Communications Officer

General (Ret.) Mark A. Welsh III
Interim President

November 1, 2023

I’m pleased to announce R. Ethan Braden as Texas A&M University’s vice president and chief marketing and communications officer, effective Dec. 1. Ethan will report directly to me as a key member of the university’s leadership team.

Ethan is a respected and accomplished marketing and communications leader in higher education. He joins Texas A&M from Purdue University, where he most recently served as executive vice president and chief marketing and communications officer and was responsible for positioning, promoting and protecting its $3 billion brand and portfolio worldwide.

Prior to Purdue, Ethan worked for Eli Lilly and Company for over a decade where he served in a variety of senior marketing and sales leadership roles in the U.S. and globally. He earned his Master of Business Administration from the University of Notre Dame and his bachelor’s degree in economics and Spanish from Willamette University in Salem, Oregon.

His advice on leadership, brand management and higher education has appeared in Fast Company magazine, The Washington Post, Ad Age, The Hechinger Report and Morning Brew. And he was recently named Content Marketer of the Year by the Content Marketing Institute, which is the “largest and longest-running international content marketing awards program for content creation, distribution and innovation.”

At Texas A&M, Ethan will leverage his skills and extensive experience to amplify the university’s national prominence and to help us further promote the incredible things happening across our campuses each day. One of his first tasks will be to quickly get up to speed on the marketing and communications centralization efforts to date and the recommendations from the quick-look assessment. I look forward to working with him to develop a collaborative vision for marketing and communications that will best serve Texas A&M, our mission and our students for years to come.

Ethan’s appointment comes after a national search that attracted many excellent candidates. I would like to thank the search advisory committee members for their contributions to this process. I also appreciate Barbara Mendoza for her leadership as senior associate vice president over the last year. She will continue to play an important role in the division and in helping Ethan transition into his new role.

Ethan’s background in higher education, specifically within a land-grant institution, makes him a great fit for the important work ahead. I’m confident he will build upon our strengths in marketing and communications to lead the division, and university, in exciting new directions. I hope you will join me in giving Ethan and his family a warm welcome to Aggieland!

Thank you and Gig ’em!

r/mark
General (Ret.) Mark A. Welsh III, Interim President