Villanova, Pa. -

Villanova University Director of Athletics Mark Jackson today announced the hiring of Janine Shao as the Director of Marketing. Shao's first day as a member of the Wildcat Athletic Department was Tuesday, Oct. 4.

Shao arrives at Villanova from ESPN in Charlotte, N.C., where she worked as an event supervisor and managed both the Men's and Women's Jimmy V Classic college basketball events and Gildan Charleston Classic preseason college basketball tournament. For both of these events she handled the marketing, branding, operations, hospitality, in-game presentation, team management and budget. She also supported the Popeyes Bahamas Bowl working closely with ancillary events, marketing gifting and budget items.

Her other duties at ESPN included overseeing multiple sponsor relationships relating to contractual fulfillment, on-site activation and recap reports and she assisted with the strategic design and price for all sponsor packages for ESPN's 29 owned and operated basketball and football events.

She started her career at ESPN in 2011 as an event assistant, before earning a promotion to event coordinator in 2012 and then to event supervisor in August of 2014.

Shao earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of North Carolina in 2011 and a M.B.A., from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 2014.