Tracy Krawczyk-Schiedel

Tracy Krawczyk-Schiedel serves as Assistant Vice President for Communications, Marketing & Digital Operations, leading strategic marketing, communications, and digital initiatives across both the Vice President for Research and Economic Development (VPRED) offices and Business and Entrepreneur Partnerships (BEP) at the University at Buffalo (UB). Since 2017, she has driven the transformation of BEP’s marketing as Director of Marketing and Communications, evolving the unit into a nationally recognized front door for industry-university collaboration and innovation.

Recently, under Tracy’s leadership, the two-day SUNY AI Symposium at UB was a resounding success, drawing over 330 AI experts, researchers, industry leaders, and startup founders from across New York State. The event showcased UB’s leadership in AI research, education, and innovation, highlighted new programs, fostered cross-sector collaboration, and received widespread recognition for advancing AI for public good and economic development.

While leading BEP’s communications team, her group has received university honors as part of UB’s Communicators Awards program—including recent wins for:

• Best E-Newsletter (Innovation to Impact)
  Recognizing excellence in thought leadership and stakeholder engagement.
• Best Website (Business and Entrepreneur Partnerships Customer-Centric Site)
  Honoring customer-focused digital innovation, achieved through Tracy’s collaborative leadership with Jess Szklany, Tom Matheny, Kirsten Fischer, Mike Grogan, and Deb Oberg.

Under her leadership she worked to revitalize BEP’s legacy Salesforce system to support growth, new grants and expanding programs. Tracy oversaw the implementation of a comprehensive 360-degree Salesforce solution designed to manage prospect and business engagement processes, program management, internal collaboration and impact measurement.

• Refreshed Sales Cloud with standardized stages for tracking programs, faculty inventions, patents and licensing.
• Program management tools to monitor participant engagement, resources, finances and compliance.
• Customized activity tracking for internal/external referrals enabling outcome measurement.
• Streamlined processes reducing manual data entry and simplifying year-end reporting.
• Enhanced reporting that drives operational improvements and transparent impact measurement.

Tracy’s team delivered a highly customized Salesforce environment that has become integral to BEP’s day-to-day operations and strategic growth.

With a proven track record in private industry sectors—including medical devices, life sciences, materials sciences, and distribution—Tracy is recognized for her expertise in integrated marketing communications, digital transformation, and complex technology implementations. Notably, during her tenure at Curbell Plastics, Tracy guided award-winning public relations campaigns, earning multiple PRSA (Public Relations Society of America) awards, which reflect her expertise in strategic communication and industry leadership.

Her leadership style is collaborative, inspiring cross-functional teams to deliver integrated solutions that acquire, retain, and delight both internal and external constituents through close coordination with IT, business development, customer service, and marketing. Her peers applaud her “ability to coordinate complex, cross-functional initiatives” and her “inspiring integration of people and processes,” which consistently elevates internal customer experience and drives results. She will often emphasize, "Effective internal marketing starts with listening deeply, understanding unique unit needs, and then delivering tailored, results-oriented strategies with agility and creativity.” This philosophy has positioned her teams as indispensable partners who “wow” both internal and external audiences by consistently exceeding expectations.

A Senior Communicator and member of UB’s Senior Communicators Council, Tracy contributes across the university’s digital transformation initiatives as a CRM Enterprise subject matter expert and CMS pioneer. Tracy has leveraged and optimized UB’s content management system (CMS) for strategic web initiatives and is deeply involved in digital strategy development campus wide. Tracy also contributes to the broader economic ecosystem as a Board Member and Marketing Advisory Board participant for Invest Buffalo Niagara (InBN).

Outside of work, Tracy enjoys travel, technology, culinary adventures, and quality time with her husband and family—which includes two accomplished adult children and a collection of four-legged companions. She values shared experiences and meaningful connections over the latest gadgets, bringing the same sense of curiosity and engagement to her personal life as she does to her professional contributions.