Director of communications and marketing joins Innovation Campus

Franki Fitterer has joined the university as the new director of communications and marketing for the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus in Alexandria. Fitterer brings two decades of higher education marketing and communications experience, including experience managing communications for the launch of a new campus.  She comes to Virginia Tech from American University, where she was director of public relations and marketing at AU’s Washington College of Law. 

“We are thrilled to have Franki join the Innovation Campus,” said Lance Collins, vice president and executive director of the Innovation Campus. “She possesses not only an impressive range of experience in marketing and communications, but also a key understanding of how to build a new brand identity for our campus in a dynamic urban environment.”

Fitterer’s role includes directing marketing and communications strategy for the Innovation Campus and its growing leadership team, as well as focusing on enrollment marketing and Innovation Campus brand strategy. She joined the Innovation Campus team on Aug. 25, just a few weeks before Virginia Tech broke ground on the new 300,000 square-foot academic building in North Potomac Yard. Fitterer is based at the Innovation Campus temporary headquarters on Potomac Avenue in Alexandria.

At American University Law School, where she led the Department of Public Relations and Marketing for 13 years, Fitterer was responsible for brand implementation, integrated marketing campaigns, web/social media content, media relations, and developing marketing tools for admissions and development. She also managed the communications and marketing for American University’s new law school campus in the Tenleytown neighborhood of Northwest Washington, D.C. The 8.5 acre, three-building campus opened in 2016 and was designed by SmithGroup, the same architect working on the Innovation Campus. Fitterer’s work on the project started in 2013 with the promotion of the groundbreaking, and continued through the construction process, fundraising efforts, final ribbon-cutting celebration, and continued promotion of the campus for student recruitment. 

Prior to AU, Fitterer was the associate director for marketing and communications at California Western School of Law in San Diego. She has a B.A. in communication (journalism) from the University of San Francisco and a M.A. in political science from American University's School of Public Affairs.

Fitterer is a resident of Falls Church City, and is originally from Edgewood, Washington.