For 11 years, Mechele Agbayani Mills has served as President/CEO of the Better Business Bureau Serving Central East Texas where she provides strategic direction and leadership and financial and operational oversight for the Tyler office which serves 19 counties in East Texas.

Since the age of 20, she has served in leadership roles in both the public and private sectors. Mechele holds a Bachelors in Journalism/Public Relations from UT Tyler and a Masters in Business Administration from Baylor University.

She writes for the Tyler Morning Telegraph, has a bi-monthly report on KETK and Fox 51, she also writes for numerous other publications in the East Texas area and abroad.

She recently completed two terms as President of the BBB Southwest Region, which covers Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Mexico. She has served on the Board of Directors for the International Council of Better Business Bureaus, for the Tyler Area Chamber of Commerce, is an advisor for the East Texas Center for Nonprofits, a member of Catalyst 100, the Women’s Fund of Smith County, Leadership Tyler, Heart of Tyler, and in 2012 was honored by Women in Tyler as a “Woman who Gives”.

Mechele loves hiking, kayaking, singing, traveling, cooking and eating. She and her husband Jeffrey live in Tyler and love the East Texas Community. They don’t have children, but they do have a 12-year old terrier named Bailey who is spoiled rotten.