Amy Yakola is the Deputy Commissioner and Chief of External Affairs at the Atlantic Coast Conference. During her tenure with the ACC, she has served in a number of areas and currently oversees the external department that includes strategic communications, public relations, marketing and branding, social/digital and creative strategy.
Throughout her time at the ACC, Yakola has been involved in three league expansions, taking the conference from nine to 15 members. She was part of the August 2019 launch of ACC Network, a 24/7 national network dedicated to ACC sports, as part of the league’s partnership with ESPN. ACC Network televises more than 500 regular-season and tournament games from across the conference’s 28 sponsored sports in addition to news and information shows plus original programming.
Yakola serves as the ACC spokesperson, when appropriate, and oversees promotional efforts to prioritize the ACC and its nearly 10,000 student-athletes, 15 world class institutions, 28 sponsored sports, championships and events across the League. She also serves as the conference office liaison to the league’s development directors.
In 2016, Yakola was named to the Sports Business Journal’s Forty Under 40 class which is an annual celebration of the country’s best young talent in sports business.
Yakola is a long-time member of the College Sports Communicators and was on the Board of Directors from 2016-19. She also serves as a member of the Corrigan-Faircloth Chapter of the National Football Foundation and was the long-time Chair of the Chapter Council for the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame.
A 1998 graduate of Clemson University, Yakola earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics Teaching before beginning her tenure with the ACC. She is a native of Saline, Michigan, and was inducted into the Saline Area Schools Hall of Fame in September 2022. Amy and her husband Scott currently reside in Mebane, North Carolina, with their two children, daughter Allender and son Holden.