The Morehead-Cain Foundation has announced that Jesse Soloff ’08 will serve in a new role as its vice president of community.

Jesse brings to the role extensive experience in partnership activation, cross-functional team leadership, and strategic relationship building. The alumnus has spent the last fifteen years in sports and experience marketing, most notably with GMR Marketing, where he held several team leadership positions, culminating in the role of senior account director.

At GMR, Jesse helped lead organizations such as Google and P&G achieve their goals through partnerships with the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the NBA, and the WNBA.

As vice president of community, Jesse will guide the alumni engagement and development teams to further envision and implement an unparalleled alumni experience.

With his background and experiences, the alumnus is poised to excel at “weaving Morehead-Cain’s diverse community to propel the Program and its mission,” Morehead-Cain President Chris Bradford said.

“Jesse is a trusted strategist with an exceptional ability to inspire and connect others,” Bradford said. “We look forward to the positive impact he’ll bring to the Program in strengthening and accelerating Morehead-Cain’s engine for leadership development.”

The vice president will define the evolution of the Foundation’s work to connect alumni across fields, backgrounds, and geographies to the “magic of Morehead-Cain,” the president said, fostering the community’s collective impact on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, state, and beyond.

Coming ‘full circle’

In the spring of his senior year of high school, Jesse received a letter from Morehead-Cain, but not with the news he was hoping for. He had been placed on the waiting list as a finalist for the Scholarship.

When the Foundation’s executive director at the time, Chuck Lovelace, gave him a call with good news a week or so later, Jesse already knew his answer. He was bound for Carolina.

“I’m forever grateful to the person who decided to go elsewhere, which allowed me to become a part of this community and, ultimately, be here today,” Jesse said.

The New Jersey native graduated from Morris Hills High School in Rockaway and was nominated to the Morehead-Cain by Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership (HOBY).

Now, as an alumnus, the vice president described his return to Morehead-Cain as a “full-circle moment.”

“I’ve been a part of this community for almost twenty years. This Program and the people that comprise it have had an outsized impact on my life, during college and throughout my career, in times of celebration and times of adversity,”Jesse said. “It’s an honor to help serve and partner with our extraordinary family of ‘cousins’ in this new capacity.”

The vice president will collaborate with Morehead-Cain’s staff and two boards, scholar body, and network of more than 3,300 alumni to further develop best-in-class alumni programming and to foster philanthropic and volunteer investment in the Program and University.

More about Jesse

Jesse is the founder and president of the Taylor Soloff Memorial Endowment, a nonprofit established in 2017 that supports patient care initiatives at the Levine Cancer Institute in Charlotte.

Jesse has also contributed essays for Charlotte magazine, including the award-winning essay, “Our Last Home,” published in 2017 as a tribute to his late wife, Taylor.

The alumnus earned a bachelor’s in political science with a minor in journalism and mass media from Carolina. As a Morehead-Cain Scholar, he was involved in the Carolina Athletic Association and Chapel Hill Players (CHiPs), an improv and sketch comedy group at Carolina.

Jesse will move from Charlotte to the Chapel Hill area in February with his wife, Katie, and daughter, Talia.