08/11/2026
Join us in welcoming Courtney Dornell as the newest member of our Board of Directors!
Courtney grew up in the Clear Lake area of Houston, where she attended Clear Lake High School. She is a growth leader with more than twenty years of experience in B2B sales & marketing. She likes to joke about the phrase “it's not rocket science,” since she got her start as a jet engine engineer before finding her way into sales and marketing. Courtney most recently served as Vice President of the Global Marketing Center of Expertise at Otis Elevator Company, where she was responsible for the company's global marketing strategy across its full product and service portfolio. As a lifelong learner, Courtney is currently in a season of rest and renewal — traveling the globe, recharging, and digging into emerging frontiers like artificial intelligence and quantum computing, with an eye toward how they'll reshape the future of marketing and travel.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in Physics from Spelman College and a Civil Engineering degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where she was a NASA Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) Scholar. She also holds an MBA from Columbia Business School. She is a graduate of Leadership Dallas and the ASCENT Mastering Management Program at the Tuck School of Business. Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Black Enterprise, and CIO Review, and in 2023 she was honored with the Paradigm for Parity Woman on the Rise award.
Courtney lives in Houston with her two toy poodles, Monte Carlo and Morocco. She is a lover of all things arts — she'll happily get on a plane and travel the globe to catch an art exhibit, the ballet, the opera, a concert, you name it. She is also a certified FORA Travel Advisor — self- appointed Creative Director of Travel — where she enjoys helping curate memorable travel experiences for others. She has served on Columbia Business School's Deming Center Advisory Board for the past six years, and is a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated, Bay Area Houston Alumnae Chapter, where she chairs the Community Partnerships Committee. She's long been active with the Boys & Girls Club of America and Communities In Schools.
As she likes to say, borrowing a favorite line from The Alchemist: “The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.”
We are so pleased to have her helping us write the next chapter as the Legacy Continues!
