Jerry DeFrancisco is a professional management consultant and educator with broad and deep experience in leadership development, business process analysis and redesign, change management, and organizational transformation. His career spans over 40 years in general management for both for-profit and nonprofit organizations, consulting and academia. He has served in senior leadership positions in a wide variety of assignments in all phases of general management.

He currently serves as Distinguished Executive in Residence at Siena College in the Center for Academic Community Engagement, and the Franciscan Mission Office; mentoring students and staff, guiding student teams, conducting classes, and facilitating seminars and discussions.  Prior to this, he served as President of Humanitarian Services for the American Red Cross from 2008 to 2014, providing executive-level leadership and management oversight of operations for over 1500 local Red Cross locations across the country and around the world. This included all local Red Cross Chapters; Disaster Preparedness, Response and Recovery; Red Cross Services to the Armed Forces; International Services; and Health and Safety education and training. In this capacity, he led a dramatic transformation in the governance, service delivery and organization structure for Red Cross Humanitarian Services.

Prior to joining the Red Cross, he was president of two global consulting firms specializing in strategy, operations sustainability and performance improvement. Prior to this, Jerry was a senior executive at AT&T, most recently Executive Vice President Broadband and Internet Services, Vice President Business Innovation, and President and CEO of AT&T Alascom, a major AT&T acquisition.

Jerry holds a BA from Siena College, an Executive MBA in Business Policy and Marketing (awarded with distinction), and a Doctorate in management from Pace University.  He has completed the Professional Management Program at Harvard University, and Senior Executive Programs at Duke University and the Aspen Institute. He has also served as an Adjunct Professor at Fairleigh Dickenson University, University of Alaska, Seton Hall University and Siena, and has been a speaker and panelist at numerous industry, government and educational conferences and forums.

Jerry is a US Army veteran, and served on the advisory board of the Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies, the Board of Research Strategies Network, and as a Senior Fellow with the West Point McDonald Cadet Leadership Program. He has also served on numerous non-profit boards, such as the Siena Board of Advisors, United Way, March of Dimes, Alaska Pacific University, the Alaska Native Heritage Center, and PG Chambers School. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Siena in 2018, and served as commencement speaker.