Who is new Arizona Athletic Director Desireé Reed-Francois and what makes her a great hire?

Desireé Reed-Francois was announced as the University of Arizona's 11th Director of Athletics following a three-academic year stint at the University of Missouri. Before her tenure at Mizzou, she spent four years at UNLV in the same capacity for her first stint as a full-time athletic director. Reed-Francois has been in a full-time athletic director position for seven years now, and she has held an Athletic Director title of some sort since she was named an associate AD at Santa Clara in 2002.

Reed-Francois' career has been marked by both success in the financial departments of the schools that employ her as well as a list of "firsts" that make her accomplishments even better. When she was named UNLV's AD in 2017, she became the first Hispanic woman to hold a full-time AD position at an FBS program. When she made the jump to Mizzou in 2021, she became the first female AD in school history and the first female AD at a public school in the SEC — Vanderbilt hired women's basketball alum Candace Story Lee just a year prior.