Shonna Brown Joins Staff As Associate Commissioner - AmericaEast.com CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — America East Commissioner Patrick Nero announced today that Shonna Brown has been hired as Associate Commissioner effective October 1. Brown will join the conference staff after being employed by the NCAA for the past three years.“We are pleased to have Shonna joining the America East Conference,” Nero says. “Her experiences on campus, in conference offices and at the NCAA will allow her to have a very positive impact on our membership.”In her new role, Brown will serve as the primary Conference contact for women’s basketball operations, including regular season, postseason and at the America East Women’s Basketball Championship. She will oversee the direction of the Conference championship program for all 20 America East sports and will serve as a liaison to the Athletics’ Directors Council, the Strategic Planning Committee, the Championships and Competition Committee and the league’s Senior Women’s Administrators. “I am proud to become part of the America East family,” Brown says. “The America East Conference is a great example of the success that comes from setting high standards for academics and athletics. I am looking forward to the start of women’s basketball season, and working with such remarkable coaches, administrators and student athletes.”With 14 years of experience in intercollegiate athletics, Brown most recently held the position of Assistant Director of Championships at the NCAA. Since her hire at the national office in 2007, Brown has been championship manager for women’s basketball, football, women’s golf, softball and track and field, working with television partners such as ESPN and CBS College Sports, and managing multi-million dollar budgets for those competitions. Brown served as a liaison to the Division II Championships Committee as well as team leader for the Division I Women’s Basketball Grant Program. Brown worked at the Mid-American Conference for five years prior to working at the NCAA. Originally hired as the Director of Compliance in 2003, she earned increasingly more responsibility, eventually growing into the role of Assistant Commissioner for Compliance/SWA and then Assistant Commissioner for Sport Programs/SWA and Women’s Basketball Operations. As Assistant Commissioner at the MAC, Brown oversaw the administration of 23 conference sports, managing budgets, providing marketing support and creating conference schedules in select sports. She also led efforts in MAC-hosted women’s basketball tournaments, serving as Co-Tournament Director of the 2006 NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Cleveland Regional and the 2007 NCAA Division I Women’s Final Four in Cleveland.Brown first entered the intercollegiate sports world as the Assistant to the Director of Football Operations at the University of Southern Mississippi from 1996-2001. From there she moved to the Patriot League office as a compliance assistant for one year before arriving at the MAC. Brown has also gathered special event experience with various groups such as International Children’s Games, the National Cheerleaders Association, the Volvo Ocean Race-Round the World and the Miami Dolphins. She’s been involved in professional memberships, served on various advisory boards and graduated from the NCAA Ethnic Minority Female Leadership Institute.Brown graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi with undergraduate work in Sport Administration and an emphasis on Business Administration, while also earning her Master’s degree in the same coursework from St. Thomas University in Miami, Florida. For Transactions: America East Conference - Named Shonna Brown Associate Commissioner