Monica Hillison

Monica Hillison is an Instructor of Marketing at Virginia Tech where she also serves as secretary of the Sales Advisory Board at VT as well as a faculty coach for the Professional Sales competition team. Ms. Hillison holds a Bachelor of Science in Public Relations from the University of Florida as well as a Master of Science in Business Management from the Warrington College of Business at the University of Florida.

With more than 18 years of corporate industry experience, Ms. Hillison’s career was in public relations and digital marketing in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Mexico before joining the department of marketing at Virginia Tech. She has held roles at public relations and marketing agencies in South Florida where she worked with key clients including United Airlines, Miami Marlins, Mars Incorporated, Cap Cana Resorts, Hanesbrands Inc, and Florida Power & Light amongst others. 

Ms. Hillison also has extensive marketing experience within the hospitality industry having opened hotels for Starwood Hotels’ (now Marriott Hotels) W Hotels & Resorts brand in Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Hoboken, Austin, and Minneapolis. She also served as the corporate marketing director for El Cid Resorts’ portfolio of international resort hotels, vacation clubs, and residential real estate communities throughout Mexico, as well as the El Cid Charitable Foundation. She has served on the Marketing Advisory Council for the City of Fort Lauderdale and was a board member of Broward County Humane Society’s Pet Set Organization in Fort Lauderdale.

Before teaching at Virginia Tech she was a faculty member at Radford University in Radford, Virginia where she taught courses in public relations and communications. In addition to teaching courses in the professional sales program at Virginia Tech, she is also developing digital marketing courses within the digital marketing minor.