Marketing & Communications Manager

ISS

As the Marketing & Communications Manager for UNM Institutional Support Services (ISS), Lydia Thomas leads the division’s strategic marketing and communication efforts, serves as a key contact for media relations, and manages the ISS Marketing & Communications team – a shared-services hub that offers comprehensive marketing and communication needs such as rebranding strategies, graphic design, photography, and website editing support to the VP Office and all 18 ISS departments and related units. This oversight ensures efficient project execution, as it involves supervising two support staff members who manage projects of all sizes. Leadership responsibilities extend beyond this as Lydia chairs the ISS Marketing & Communications (MarCom) Committee, a group of marketing and communication professionals who lead focused creative efforts across select ISS Departments.

Lydia is an exceptional advertising and multimedia project manager with over 14 years of experience in marketing, branding, print/digital advertising, and photography with advanced skills in conceptualizing and implementing a wide variety of marketing avenues, brand identity, highly effective promotional campaigns, sales collateral, and more. Lydia joined the Vice President’s Office for Institutional Support Services in 2024.

She has achieved several significant accomplishments while working for UNM in her previous roles, in 2023 Lydia successfully implemented a mile-long interactive walking path across UNM's North Campus. Additionally, she strategically led a year-long comprehensive project to launch the marketing collateral tool, Marq, institutionally through a negotiated University-wide contract. This initiative unified over 300 users across UNM Health & Health Sciences, UNM School of Medicine, and UNM Central Campus, aligning with the overarching 2040 UNM: One University goal. The project allowed for reduced costs on labor by creating a self-serve product model for the development of thousands of marketing materials. Lydia previously created and managed a large-scale Marketing & Communications strategic plan campaign, visual identity, and collateral for the 2023 UNM Health & Health Sciences Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Campus Climate Survey. The survey saw a successful response of nearly 1,500 respondents in its first-ever implementation. Additionally, Lydia conceptualized and piloted myUNM Health, which is a holistic rebrand and unification of three medical portals consisting of MPages for providers, myHealth for patients, and Teladoc (Virtual Visits). As a lifelong New Mexican, Lydia has previously worked in many sectors of advertising around the state, including several non-profits and the Albuquerque Journal. She is an alumna of The University of New Mexico College of Fine Arts and is a current student working towards an MBA in Marketing through UNM Anderson School of Management.