A true believer in the power of words, creativity and innovation to change the workplace and the world for the better, Vincent Rhodes brings 20+ years of experience in communications and marketing to help clients manage crisis, engage internal and external audiences and build stronger brands.
Prior to joining Jarrard in 2026, Rhodes served as chief communications and marketing officer for Eastern Virginia Medical School.
Rhodes is a frequent presenter at national conferences on storytelling, executive communications, speechwriting and crisis communications. He also launched — and for a decade curated and hosted — a film festival highlighting the work of health systems across the country to encourage organizations to embrace use of digital video.
Before entering healthcare, Rhodes served as communications manager and clerk of the school board for Norfolk Public Schools, the largest urban school system in Virginia. At the time of his service, the public school system educated roughly 37,000 students, employed nearly 6,000 full- and part-time staff and included approximately 60 school and program sites across the city.
Rhodes earned his doctorate in new media and professional writing from Old Dominion University. His dissertation focused on building online community in graduate distance-learning classrooms. Rhodes also earned a master’s in professional writing and rhetoric from ODU and a bachelor’s in communication with a minor in biology from James Madison University. He is past chair of the Association of American Medical College’s Group on Institutional Advancement and Accredited in Public Relations (APR) by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).
Worth Knowing:
- A former scuba instructor who has dived underneath Arctic ice, on sunken World War II wrecks in the Central Pacific, in underwater caves, and in a variety of warm, sunny locales
- Serves as dad, chef, personal assistant and couch to a demanding French bulldog, LuLu
- An unabashed em-dash champion — well before AI made them a “thing” — and a lover of diagramming sentences
