Meet the expert

A veteran leader with 20+ years of experience in athletic administration, Vanessa Fuchs joined WeCOACH as Chief Executive Officer in March 2022. Before WeCOACH, she served 12 years as Senior Associate Athletics Director and Senior Woman Administrator at her alma mater, Florida State University. 

In her first three years, WeCOACH membership has grown 1,300 percent, now serving over 18,000 women coaches in the WeCOACH Community. In addition, grant funding has more than doubled, Academy Scholarships funding has septupled to over $50K, and new leadership programs have launched to advance the WeCOACH mission to recruit, advance, and retain women in coaching.

Vanessa’s tenure at FSU began in 2010, where she served in a variety of important leadership roles over the past decade. Named the 2015 Women Leaders in Sports Division I Administrator of the Year and an FSU Champion Beyond the Game honoree in 2016, she was instrumental in providing strategic direction for departmental initiatives focused on student-athlete welfare, enhancing athletic performance, fundraising and new revenue generation, gender equity, and diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility & belonging (DEIAB).

In June of 2013, former Florida State President Dr. Eric Barron named Fuchs the school’s interim Athletics Director as she became the first woman to lead the Seminoles’ Athletic Department. The former Seminole basketball player was one of just seven women leading an athletics department among the 124 schools that participated at the FBS level in 2012.

Prior to arriving at Florida State, Vanessa committed seven years to the NCAA in Indianapolis in Academic and Membership Affairs. She got her start as a Championships Intern with the ACC in 2001. The Pompano Beach, Florida, native was a four-year letterwinner for the Seminoles’ women’s basketball team from 1997-2001. She was the team co-captain in her senior year and finished her career as a four-time ACC Honor Roll selection.

Vanessa graduated Magna Cum Laude with a bachelor’s degree in communications at Florida State University and earned her master’s degree in Sport Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Vanessa resides in Tallahassee, FL with her longtime partner Chrissy and their two French Bulldogs, Fenix and Frankie (aka, “The UNcoachables”).