Published on Show Me Mizzou Sept. 4, 2023
Story by Jack Wax, BS Ed ’73, MS ’76, MA ’87
Mindy (Ruff) Mazur makes an immediate and genuine connection with virtually everyone she meets, not a bad trait for an incoming Mizzou Alumni Association president. Gifted with a confident and easy manner, she’s set her sights on a basic goal for her accomplished career. “I’m to the point where I’ve boiled down what success looks like for me, and it’s pretty simple,” she says, describing it as “being able to work with people I like and getting paid to work on issues I care about.”
Her career has been built on a commitment to make Missouri and the country better. After graduating from MU in 1999, Mazur progressed through a multiverse of careers before landing four years ago as managing partner for Lents Mazur & Associates, a St. Louis-based strategic consulting firm with clients throughout the U.S. In 2025, she will transition to become the firm’s sole owner.
With a bio that reads like a case study in public service and business leadership, Mazur founded an initiative 10 years ago that linked, in her words, “do-good people to do-good work.” That endeavor led her to oversee a team at Lents Mazur & Associates that offers consulting services for nonprofits and commercial companies. Her involvement with MAA started as a fan: Attending Tiger watch parties, she was soon mentoring other women in MAA’s Griffiths Leadership Society. “People and purpose are the threads that connect my interests. It’s a thread with a good bit of black and gold in it,” she says. Outside of her salaried hours, she devotes time and energy to her family — she and her partner, Jeff Mazur, BA ’99, have twin daughters — and unpaid volunteer work.
While an MU undergraduate majoring in communications with a music minor, Mazur flexed her activist muscles by co-founding a program to prevent sexual assault. After graduation, she broadened her focus on social issues as a legislative aide for Congressman Ike Skelton in Washington, D.C., along the way earning a master’s in political management from George Washington University. Mazur went on to manage Robin Carnahan’s successful Missouri race for secretary of state, then became Carnahan’s chief of staff.
Calling herself “fortunate to have meaningful work that makes an impact,” the new MAA president describes similar aims as she furthers the alumni association’s mission: “My goals are to make more alums feel included and welcomed and to leverage technology to keep people connected.”
To read more articles like this, become a Mizzou Alumni Association member and receive MIZZOU magazine in your mailbox. Click here to join.
