For Loyola’s Class of 2026, commencement will mark the end of four years filled with involvement, growth, and uncertainty about what comes next. This year’s commencement speaker, Carrie Fox, understands that moment well because she once was a Greyhound herself.
Fox ‘01 describes her reaction to being named commencement speaker.
“I’m very excited, very humbled and very surprised. But delighted really. I mean, it just feels like a full circle moment. On my 25th anniversary from graduating 25th on the dot,” Fox said.
Long before becoming the founder and CEO of Mission Partners, a woman owned communications firm focused on social impact, Fox was navigating her own college decisions and leadership journey right on Loyola’s campus.
She said attending Loyola was not originally part of her plan.
“I didn’t think I would go to Loyola. I wanted to go to NYU. And I got in, and my mom was not thrilled about the idea of me spending college years in the big city. So she said, ‘Let’s just go to this nice campus down in Baltimore and just check it out,’” Fox said.
Once Fox stepped on Loyola’s campus, she knew it felt right.
“I walked on this campus and I thought, I have to be here. I just have to be here. This is the place. Just feels like the place I’m supposed to be. And every year that I was here continued to play that out,” Fox said.
Once on campus, Fox became deeply involved in campus life. By her junior year, she was elected a Student Government Association (SGA) President. In that role, with the help of her fellow students, she helped bring Loyola’s student radio station WLOY back to life.
“It was dormant for years, and we realized people were listening and consuming media in different ways and knew people listened to the radio and wanted to bring that back,” Fox said.
Leadership opportunities like these helped shape Fox’s values and future career path. A defining moment came through a professor who introduced her to the idea of purpose driven work. She said Professor Andrea Giampetro-Meyer, who teaches in the Sellinger School of Business, was the first one to teach her about purpose.
“She talked a lot about purpose driven companies and that you could do good in the world by also building a business to do good in the world. And that was a light bulb moment for me. From there on out I thought I want to find a way to build a career where I can literally be giving back and building a business at the same time,” Fox said.
Fox carried Loyola’s Jesuit values with her into her professional life focusing much of her career on giving back and building her business.
“Everything that Loyola represents particularly cares for the whole person and cares for the community. I took those things to heart. And so I think about that very deeply in terms of how I run my company, how we care for our employees,” Fox said.
Today, her firm partners with nonprofits, foundations, and socially responsible businesses to help them tell their stories, connect with audiences, and create meaningful change in their communities.
Through her leadership, Fox has guided initiatives ranging from transforming foster care programs for young adults aging out of the system, to leading messaging for a $10 million global competition focused on fuel efficient vehicles. She has also worked with organizations in children’s health, workforce development, and social justice, helping them strengthen public engagement and donor support.
Her company’s workplace culture has received national recognition.
“We maintain what’s called the Mental Health Bell Seal, a platinum Mental Health Bell Seal, which means we’re one of the few companies in the entire country that is celebrated for our commitment to mental health in the workplace. And so for a small business to be honored at that level really signals how much we take care of the whole person to heart,” Fox said.
Fox’s journey into communications began with an interest familiar to many Loyola students.
“When I first got here, I thought I was going to be a reporter. And then I realized I could tell stories from a different perspective, and I minored actually I guess then it was called a specialization in public relations. And I just kind of took off with public relations,” Fox said
While still a student, she secured internships and quickly entered the professional world, even working for former Baltimore Orioles player Cal Ripken Jr.
She became his director of PR while still a student at Loyola, balancing daytime work with evening classes, and, immediately after graduation, began traveling with him for various projects. Fox’s career quickly took off from there.
“But I was doing PR for the first maybe 10-15 years of my career like straight up media relations. And then I started to shift into bigger picture strategic consulting. The entire time since I started my first company when I was 25 it has always been about working with organizations who can say what we do for the good of others,” Fox said.
As she prepares to address graduates this spring, Fox offered a preview of a message that has stayed with her since her own commencement day.
“The day I graduated from Loyola, my Uncle Abe said to me, make your life 90% who you are and 10% what you do,” Fox said.
She also shared her admiration for Loyola’s graduating seniors,
“Having watched this school these last several years, Loyola’s 2026 class strikes me as a class that’s been engaged since day one. You showed up and you were ready to go. Every student I’ve met in this grade has been just incredible,” Fox said.
Fox believes that initiative is one of the defining strengths of Loyola graduates.
“I think Loyola students have great ideas and have great initiative. And that goes a long way in the world,” Fox said.