About Us

Jordan Zimmerman

"When I noticed that the curriculum for communications hadn't changed since I was a student 20 years prior, I knew something had to be done. I wanted a business-focused program that reflected the ever-evolving advertising industry, so I created it." - Jordan Zimmerman

After Jordan Zimmerman graduated from USF in 1980, he built an advertising empire that discarded conventional wisdom and infused marketing creativity with a relentless focus on data and analytics that drove the bottom line. Through the success of his agency, Zimmerman Advertising, one of the largest in the world, he decided to work with his alma mater to reinvent advertising education.

Zimmerman invented the Zimmerman Advertising Program: a unique advertising program dedicated to producing the next generation of chief marketing officers. It would expose students to business and communication through real-world immersion. It would be rigorous and demanding, include a five-year full-time curriculum, and to graduate, a student would have to become a master of the very tools all businesses value: an understanding that there is no value in marketing without the return on marketing investment. This program was built around the idea that brands don't build brands, it's people who build brands, and teamwork and culture are the motor oil in the commercial engine.

Jordan Zimmerman is currently a USF Board of Trustees member and is the founder and chairman of Zimmerman Advertising, with its headquarters in Ft. Lauderdale.