For over 12 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 currently serves on the Executive Committee for the Board of Directors for the International Council of Better Business Bureaus and Tyler Area Chamber of Commerce and is a member of Catalyst 100 Leadership Tyler and the Women’s Fund of Smith County. She has served as an advisor for the East Texas Center for Nonprofits, UT Tyler Regional Alumni Council, Heart of Tyler, and in 2012 was honored by Women in Tyler as a “Woman who Gives”.

Mechele loves hiking, kayaking, playing tennis, 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 13-year old terrier named Bailey who is spoiled rotten.