DianaHovey
Senior Vice President, Corporate Partnerships, Share Our Strength
Diana Hovey serves as Senior Vice President at Share Our Strength, a leading national non-profit committed to ending hunger and poverty in the U.S. and abroad. Diana currently leads Share Our Strength’s portfolio of corporate partnerships, spanning a considerable breadth of industries including brands such as Citi, Williams Sonoma, General Mills, and Walmart, in addition to a broad restaurant portfolio representing every sector of the industry. Working with partners’ marketing executives and their agencies, Diana and her team are committed to creating differentiated campaigns that drive measurable business results and contribute to the unwavering mission of ending childhood hunger.
Diana’s deep passion for creating purpose-driven brands runs deep. For over 30 years, Diana applied her strategic marketing expertise across many sectors of the restaurant industry. She directed T.G.I. Friday’s first national media buy and developed marketing and brand strategy for its new concepts division before joining Brinker International’s executive team to lead marketing and brand development for several brands in its portfolio, including On the Border, Cozymel’s, and Romano’s Macaroni Grill. Diana joined the leadership team at Corner Bakery Cafe in 2006, which had just recently spun off from Brinker to new private equity ownership. In her role as Chief Marketing Officer, Diana led brand marketing strategy for the rapidly growing fast-casual concept.
A firm believer that ‘doing good is good for business’, Diana has seen firsthand the immense impact that a strong purpose-driven culture can have on key brand objectives while delivering significant and much-needed support to underserved communities. This led Diana to put her passion into practice on a larger scale. In 2015, Diana was recruited by Share Our Strength to lead its campaign to unite the restaurant industry behind ending childhood hunger, engaging more than 200 brands to raise over $100 million to end child hunger in the U.S. She now leads all corporate partnerships for Share Our Strength, its largest and most prominent revenue center.
Diana has been actively involved in the National Restaurant Association and is a former chair and board member of its Marketing Executives Group. Through personal mentorship and guest lectures, Diana enjoys working with marketing and non-profit students as they seek to understand the value of a purpose-driven career.
Diana is an alumna of the University of North Texas and Texas Woman’s University. Diana and her husband live in Austin and enjoy spending time with their children who have also pursued careers in the communications and digital disciplines.