As assistant vice president (AVP) for creative and digital marketing at Samford University, Todd leads an award-winning team of creative professionals responsible for supporting university recruitment, advancement, branding and communication. Todd’s passion for helping organizations effectively communicate their unique abilities to meet clients’ needs inspires him to seek solutions to complex business problems through the innovative application of design and technology.

Todd started his career in design at the Woman’s Missionary Union where he served as the principal designer for their flagship magazine, Royal Service, and shared responsibility for creating, Missions Mosaic. Upon assuming a graphic design role at Details Communications, Todd embraced opportunities to specialize in digital design, learned to write code, build websites, edit audio and video, and author interactive media leading to the formation of Details’ New Media Group where he served as director.

Love of and commitment to great design provided Todd with a novel software development framework focused on meeting real-world needs through ease of use. Innovative system design and early adoption of new technologies guided by this philosophy resulted in the successful release of E-Zekiel, a low-cost, user-friendly web content management system that facilitated the launch of Axletree Media, a new company dedicated to serving the emerging digital market.

As vice president, Todd provided leadership for Axletree’s Birmingham office, development, and customer support. He drew upon his combined love of design, software engineering, and marketing to lead development of Thrive, an integrated marketing and content delivery platform designed to help clients harness the combined power of the web, social media, email, text messaging, and print on demand. Performant employees and software resulting in high cash flow and low overhead led to the company’s acquisition in 2013.

Upon arrival as Samford's director of web services, Todd collaborated with colleagues across the university to systematically renovate samford.edu into a beautiful, effective, standards-compliant site that meets the complex needs of university constituents while promoting discovery of and engagement with the award-winning content, photography, and videography created by our accomplished marketing colleagues.

Alongside vice president, Betsy Holloway, Todd championed the creation and hiring of Samford’s social media and digital marketing manager positions. He was promoted to AVP for creative and digital marketing where he assumed direct leadership of the teams responsible for creative, digital marketing, licensing, photography, and web services and collaborates with the AVP for university marketing and public relations to ensure the functional effectiveness of marketing and communication.

Samford’s mission to provide the next generation of leaders with a world-class education in a faith-affirming environment continues to inspire and motivate Todd—a feat matched only by the pleasure of working alongside his world-class marketing colleagues.

Degrees and Certifications

• BS in Communications (Concentration in Advertising and Public Relations; Minor in Graphic Design)
• Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP)
• Microsoft Certified Solution Developer (MCSD)
• AMA Professional Certified Marketer (PCM), Digital Marketing Pro (DMP)
• Certified Digital Marketing Professional (CDMP)