President

Lee Ivory
president@wabjdc.org

Lee Ivory is a veteran Washington, D.C., journalist and media consultant. He currently is president and CEO of Ivory Communications, an all-purpose media consulting and marketing firm based in Northern Virginia. Ivory, 50, held a variety of positions in Gannett Co. Inc., where he worked until December 2007. Most recently, he was deputy managing editor of USA TODAY's News and Sports departments. Before that, he was publisher and executive editor of USA TODAY Sports Weekly, a national magazine that specializes in the coverage of college baseball, Major League Baseball and the National Football League.

Ivory is credited with remaking the magazine into a national authority on baseball and football; it was started as Baseball Weekly in 1991. At USA TODAY, Ivory covered everything from national elections and NASA to national disasters and civil rights. Ivory also was an award-winning managing editor at Gannett News Service, which covers Congress, the White House and the federal government for Gannett's 90-plus newspapers. Ivory is a sought-after motivational speaker. He regularly speaks at colleges and universities across the country and works with at-risk youth in the Washington area.

Ivory currently is president of the Washington Association of Black Journalists (WABJ), an affiliate of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ). WABJ won Chapter of the Year in 2007, Ivory's first year at the helm. In 1981, Ivory – who hails from Hot Springs, Ark. –– graduated Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Ark., with a major in journalism and a minor in Radio/TV. He is a Distinguished Alumnus of the university. Ivory is a board member of the Institute for Advanced Journalism Studies at North Carolina A&T University, and is on the advisory board at Stratford University. He currently lives in Woodbridge, Va.