Southwest hires Jeremy Shirley as Associate Vice President of Strategic Marketing and Communications

By Diana Fedinec 

Southwest hires Jeremy Shirley as Associate Vice President of Strategic Marketing and CommunicationsSouthwest Tennessee Community College has hired Jeremy Shirley as the college’s new Associate Vice President of Strategic Marketing and Communications effective April 17, 2023. In his new role, Shirley will lead the department of marketing and communications and oversee its functions to include brand management, marketing, public relations, communications and social media.

Jeremy's love for marketing and communications began in his hometown church, running cameras for its television program. From there, he started working at KATV (ABC Affiliate) in Little Rock, Arkansas but found his home at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, Arkansas where he turned his part-time TV job into a meaningful career. While attending college, he worked full-time at KAIT (ABC Affiliate) in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and eventually became a newscast director for 5 & 10pm newscasts. 

He was brought back to Little Rock to work as a newscast director for KTHV (CBS Affiliate) but later changed to a career in television ad production that allowed him to stop working the night shift. As a commercial producer, Jeremy edited up to 125 commercials per week and honed the skills necessary to launch a director role in television production. After a brief stint exploring a career in web development at an ad agency, Jeremy came home to KAIT as their Marketing Director. As a member of the leadership team at the station, he led a team of commercial producers to create television ads for clients and promotional ads for the station. Jeremy continually focused on training and developing the team's skills, which led to a 49% increase in revenue. His training system became recognized at the corporate level, and he became known as the "go-to" for commercial producer training within the company. 

After ten years at KAIT, winning multiple state-wide and national awards, Jeremy decided to focus his skills on working for one client. He began his career in higher education in August 2014 at Arkansas State University-Newport, a community college in the Arkansas State University System. As the first director of marketing at the college, he created the marketing department and implemented changes that increased specific program enrollment by 300% and overall institutional enrollment by 5% in his first two years. He won the institution's first national gold Paragon award in his first year and acquired several Medallion awards in his eight years at the institution. 

Jeremy is married to Tory Shirley and they have a daughter, son-in-law, grandson and granddaughter on the way.

Welcome to the Saluqi family, Jeremy!