Shelly Green, CDME

Shelly Green is a 30+-year veteran of destination marketing, having led organizations in Chapel Hill, Asheville, and Durham, North Carolina. Following her retirement from Discover Durham in 2019, she founded Shelly Green, LLC to assist destinations with strategic planning, coalition building, policy development and governance.

A well-rounded leader, Shelly has worked as a CMO, COO and CEO in both public and private organizations providing her with a keen understanding of finance, human resources, sales & marketing, advocacy, and destination leadership. She’s managed several start-ups too, with expertise in shaping a vision, mission, and purpose, crafting metrics to measure success, and recruiting talent.

During her tenure in Durham, she oversaw the organization’s accreditation and re-accreditation process earning 26 exemplary citations for best practices. She worked with community leaders there to launch the Durham Sports Commission, a collaboration between the DMO, city, county, and chamber of commerce, while also devising a new funding structure to support it.

Shelly has a long history of volunteer service including stints on the boards of Destinations International, the Destination Marketing Accreditation Program (2 as chair), numerous North Carolina tourism associations, and several university hospitality programs. She was recognized by her peers for service and leadership with the Barrentine Award from the Destination Marketing Association of NC, the Bill Sharpe Public Service Award by the NC Travel Industry Association, and a Women in Business award from the Triangle Business Journal.

Shelly earned a bachelor and master’s degree from the University of Miami. She resides with her partner on Mayo Lake near Roxboro, North Carolina.