Amy McCombs has more than 30 years of experience in general management and operations of complex media, educational, financial services, and nonprofit organizations. She has focused her leadership on organizations caught in rapidly changing competitive, regulatory, and technology environments. She has extensive experience successfully managing change and has a reputation for attracting the talent and team needed to achieve organizational goals and financial objectives. Among her accomplishments, she successfully managed advertising-driven media for the Washington Post Company and the Chronicle Publishing Company during periods of both explosive growth and recession.
After 30 years as an innovative and visible media executive, Amy was recruited to apply her leadership and management skills to higher education as President and CEO of Heald College. The College was representative of the challenges facing higher education: shifting demographics, increased competition from traditional and emerging education providers, new technologies, and increasing costs. Amy is credited with securing for the institution a source of high quality long-term capital.
She has brought her strategic and management skills to the boardrooms of both corporate and nonprofit organizations. She has chaired boards and has served as chair of governance, finance, investment, audit, and marketing committees. As chair of the Auto Club Group (ACG), one of the largest and most influential members of the American Automobile Association, she participate in the strategic transformation of ACG to a 3 million member insurance and financial services organization operating on a national basis with assets approaching $3 billion and consolidated revenues of over $1.25 billion.
The San Francisco Business Times identified Amy as one of the 50 most influential businesswomen in the Bay Area and she has been recognized as one of the most successful women in television. She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors including the Medal of Honor for Distinguished Service in Journalism from theUniversity Of Missouri School of Journalism, B’nai Brith’s First Amendment Freedom Award, and the National Headliner Award from Women in Communications. Electronic Media profiled her as one of the “Twelve to Watch.” She has led broadcast organizations that have earned the industry’s most prestigious awards and recognition including: DuPont, Emmy, Iris, Radio TV News Directors Association, and Associated Press awards.