2021 Campaign Chair: Cecilia Russo Turner

Cecilia Russo Turner is the Founder and CEO of Cecilia Russo Marketing, a company she established in 2008 to provide strategic communications, marketing, fundraising, and public relations counsel to senior executives in the large private sector and nonprofit organizations. She has nearly 30 years of experience directing clients with tactics and programs that have consistently delivered proven results.

Turner has been a driving force behind many major gift solicitations and continues to be actively engaged in philanthropic activities, raising tens of millions of dollars for nonprofit charities and civic improvements in communities throughout Savannah, the Lowcountry, and the Southeast region of our State. She was proud to provide strategic direction, public relations, and transformative gift solicitation for the most successful campaign of the Veterans Council of Chatham County: the World War II Memorial, ‘A World Apart,’ erected on historic West River Street, Savannah GA, and dedicated to November 2010.

Turner’s civic volunteer efforts include board positions with United Way of the Coastal Empire, Horizons Savannah, and the Savannah Technical College Foundation. Previously, she served on the boards of Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Coastal Empire, Rotary Club of Savannah, Senior Citizens, Inc., and Kiwanis Club of Skidaway Island.

She was recognized as Volunteer of the Year by Junior Achievement of Savannah in 2013 and named Entrepreneur of the Year by the Savannah Chamber of Commerce in 2018. She is a 2016 graduate of Leadership Southeast Georgia and a proud alumna of St. Vincent’s Academy and the University of Georgia.

Growing up in her family’s now 75-year old seafood business; it goes without saying that saltwater runs through her veins. Turner loves spending time on the water with her friends and family, on any beach anywhere at any time, or bending a rod deep-sea fishing around the world. She is married to Bob Turner, and they have five grandchildren.