Deacon Spotlight: Jane Beasley Duncan

Jane Beasley Duncan (2007, BA in Political Science, Minor in English)

Founder, JBD Insight and Director of Marketing, Front Street Capital in Winston-Salem, NC

Tell us about your current job role and employer. What are you currently working on?

I run my own fractional marketing leadership practice, where I plug in with companies and organizations who don’t necessarily need a full-time CMO or marketing director, but whose growth goals and business challenges mean they need senior-level marketing expertise and insight. The main work I’m doing in that capacity now is with Front Street Capital, where in addition to guiding the firm’s overall brand, marketing, and communications work, I’m running marketing for The Grounds — the transformational new development along Deacon Boulevard in partnership with Wake Forest!

What key personal and/or career experiences led you to where you are today?

I spent more than 17 years leading accounts and brand strategy work in really strong independently owned advertising agencies (Luquire in Charlotte and The Variable here in Winston). Working so closely with a range of clients — and I mean “client” as both brands and humans — included constant attention to what drives people and the insights we can make about humans to help us all advance and move forward (again, as people and businesses). I loved that work, but in 2024 realized I needed more autonomy over and responsibility for my own path — which led me to the fractional model that I’m thriving in now.

What is the most challenging aspect of your job? How do you navigate that challenge?

From The Grounds perspective, it’s definitely a unique challenge to market something that people can’t actually visit or “buy” for quite a bit of time. That’s meant really focusing on clarity and transparency of information, and engagement in terms of telling the stories of how this came to be, the people making it happen, and the people who will enjoy it for generations to come.

On the JBD Insight front, I’m challenged to remember that now I’m only one person (vs. running a 20-person account management team at a 100+ person agency!), so being honest and true to my bandwidth is definitely something I navigate regularly — since part of this move was to have more time for volunteering, family, and myself. That said, I’ve loved being able to connect people with other resources and solutions when I can’t necessarily be the one to help; that’s been one of the more surprising components of what I’m doing now and I love being that “connector.”

What advice would you give to Wake Forest graduates about developing their personal life habits after college (finances, health, values, work/life balance)?

Not everything has to be perfect (although our Wake Forest mindsets might make us drift that way), but I think the biggest thing I’ve learned is to try to do favors to your future self. That means being intentional, making decisions with some degree of purpose and recognizing that purpose, and also respecting the fact that that future self will have achieved things you don’t even think about yet!

We know that relationships are important for any kind of development. How do you build and maintain your network?

I was fortunate to grow up with parents* for whom personal and professional networks came as naturally as breathing. So while “building your network” can feel like an intimidating task, to me it’s just seeing people as humans and friends, integrating your expertise and work into natural conversation, and being genuinely interested in connecting with people — whether you’ve known them forever, have colleagues or friends in common, or are meeting them at some kind of event. With curiosity, open-mindedness, kindness, and respect, we can almost always find some nugget or shared interest or contact to connect over — I think Wake Forest reinforces that and it makes those relationships really strong.

*I must acknowledge that my parents are also Wake alums — Jennie (’75) and Earl (’73) Beasley! Thanks for all the connections y’all provided me too 🙂

Tell us about your mentoring relationships. What impact have these relationships had on your career and life?

I haven’t had a situation where I looked at someone and said, “Oh, I want him or her to be my mentor.” To me, mentoring relationships have happened really organically, and those people have become some of my dearest friends and trusted resources. One is Stephanie Spicer, now President at Luquire, the agency where I built my career for 13 years in Charlotte. When I had 99% decided to go out on my own, I went down to have lunch with her, not having talked to her about this move at all, and not having worked together in nearly four years. The belief she had in me when I shared my plan, the encouragement and enthusiasm she gave me, and the insight she shared about myself and my path forward were so energizing — and that’s just one example of how having those people in your life not only helps you learn organically from them all the time, but can validate and support decisions that drive forward momentum.

What advice would you give to current Wake Forest students and/or young alumni who are interested in working in your industry?

Be as human as you can: human in how you interact from a genuine perspective; human in how you see, understand, and respect people; and human in making sure you don’t default to AI solutions to make work and decisions (but use it as a tool to help you focus more on adding that humanity!). I think in marketing — both in how we put messages out in the world, and how we interact with clients and teams — over-engineering can take the connection and emotion out of things, but the most successful people I’ve seen in agencies, client-side, and still today are those who work and live with that humanity in mind.

What’s next for your career? What future goals or plans are you pursuing?

So much of what’s next is around The Grounds; there is so much exciting work coming up and the way the brand, marketing, and communications world is building and evolving along with the literal construction is just fascinating and so much fun, so a big chunk of my future 1-, 3-, 5-year focus is there. I also have a couple of fun partnerships with friends on the horizon (including another Wake grad or two…) where we’re using our different collective strengths to potentially bring some new products to market, so introducing that entrepreneurship into my future path is really exciting. And I’m considering how to productize or monetize that connection piece of finding the right solutions for people with unique marketing needs — so lots happening!

Story published in February 2026. For current updates about Jane, visit her LinkedIn profile.