How Darden Alum Jennifer Chick Leads Brand Strategy at the National Geographic Society

You don’t need to see the title to know it’s National Geographic.

The yellow border – and the striking photography – say it instantly.

As Chief Marketing and Brand Officer for the iconic organization founded in 1888, Jennifer Chick (MBA ’08) is now responsible for keeping that legacy strong while making sure it stays relevant for new generations.

The Darden Foundation Behind Her Leadership

To understand how Chick thinks, you do not start with National Geographic, you start at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.

Jennifer Chick, National Geographic Society Chief Marketing and Brand Officer

The School is where she learned to navigate big questions without clean answers, to step into conversations before she felt fully ready, and to depend on people around her instead of trying to carry everything herself.

In class, she learned that speaking up was not reserved for the technical expert.

In the actual business world, she has found that still holds true.

Today Chick often occupies rooms with CEOs, researchers and creatives whose expertise spans industries and disciplines. The way she shows up in those settings traces back to Charlottesville.

She contributes, she listens and she keeps the conversation moving.

The community piece stayed with her as well. Alumni helped her early in her career, and she intends to do the same. The instinct to pay it forward never left.

A Career Built Around Meaningful Brands

Chick never set out to specialize in legacy brands, but that is where she has made her mark. At Hilton, where she served across a variety of positions for 14 years, she worked during the company’s 100-year milestone, a moment that required honoring history while ensuring the brand stayed meaningful for the next century.

The National Geographic Society presents a similar opportunity, but on a scale she did not fully expect.

Even after growing up reading the magazine, she did not realize the size of the Society’s impact until she arrived in October of 2025.

What most audiences associate with the organization – the iconic magazine and photography – represents a fraction of the work happening behind the scenes through global storytelling, science and education.

Keeping an Icon Iconic

The marketing challenge is not to reinvent National Geographic but to help audiences experience it everywhere curiosity shows up.

That might be a magazine on a coffee table, a documentary at home, a digital short on a phone or a youth program in a community that has never been part of the narrative before.

Chick sees the brand’s heritage as an advantage rather than a constraint.

Curiosity, exploration, scientific accuracy and emotionally resonant storytelling are not outdated ideas. They are timeless. Her job is to translate them for the way people discover and learn today.

Why Storytelling Still Matters

In an era shaped by artificial intelligence and fast-moving content, Chick sees storytelling not as something that will fade, but something that will matter even more. Technology can produce content, but it cannot replicate the emotional experience of a story grounded in lived moments, real research and human perspective.

Chick firmly believes that the Society’s commitment to scientific rigor gives it an authenticity that audiences can continue to trust.

Instead of trying to compete with artificial content, the goal is to elevate what is real.

Leadership That Makes Space for Others

Colleagues describe Chick as a leader who cares deeply about people while holding high expectations for clarity and accountability.

She is a visionary executive and pivotal leader whose dedication has quickly become integral to guiding the Society into the next chapter of its historic legacy.

She aims to create an environment where individuals feel valued and supported, and where success is defined clearly. Collaboration is central to her approach, not because it is a leadership trend, but because it produces better outcomes.

She does not pretend to have every answer and does not think leaders should.

If leaders act like they already know everything, others stop contributing.

For Chick, leadership works best when a team builds the solution together.

A Role That Feels Personal

One moment early in the job made the mission especially real.

Chick attended a Base Camp event where National Geographic Young Explorers shared their research, stories and ideas. Some were documenting their communities through photography. Others were pursuing scientific work in partnership with their universities. All were driven by curiosity.

Seeing that work firsthand helped reframe the brand.

National Geographic is not only telling stories about the world. It is helping shape the next generation of people who will explore it.

Whether that spark begins with a magazine photo in a classroom or a grant that launches a research career, the impact is the same: Curiosity can shape lives.

Full Circle

Chick can trace a direct path from Darden to her current role.

Instincts developed in Charlottesville are the ones she uses most today.

The ability to contribute without certainty, to rely on others, to listen, to ask the right questions and to lead collaboratively are the tools that matter most in a role where the world is always changing.

She does not describe the job in terms of pressure. She describes it in terms of purpose, possibility and people, the same ideas that shaped her at Darden.

Chick still carries them. And she knows exactly where they began.

“Darden was such an amazing training ground for leaders,” she said. “I am so fortunate to have had the opportunity to go there.”