Sydney Hanes will serve as the operations assistant for the Southern Conference in 2016-17. Hanes will assist with the management of conference championships, multimedia and social media, while providing support in other areas of operations, including marketing and compliance.

A 2016 graduate of the University of North Carolina, Hanes spent a year as an intern with the UNC Athletics Marketing Department, working with the 700-member Carolina Kids Club. There, she planned and executed Kids Club events at Tar Heel athletic contests. Hanes also served as a social media intern in the athletics department, operating North Carolina’s official accounts during various games and events.

The Winston-Salem, N.C., native also held public relations internships with UNC’s House Library Undergraduate Design Lab and with Chapel Hill-Carrboro Youth Forward and was an event assistant at the Winston-Salem Open ATP World Tour event, working in ticketing in 2014 and marketing & entertainment in 2015.

Hanes was a two-year committee chair of the Carolina Athletic Association and served as the sub-chair and as a committee member of Relay For Life of UNC. She double-majored in media and journalism and Spanish.