United Way Suncoast Leadership

Through her guidance, United Way Suncoast partners with more than 400 nonprofit organizations in its five-county footprint: Hillsborough, Pinellas, Manatee, Sarasota and DeSoto. Florida’s largest local United Way in terms of people served, United Way Suncoast invested in partners that successfully answer more than 500,000 service requests from across the region every year. 

Now in her fifth year at United Way Suncoast, Muroff continues to create impact. Her latest achievements include elevating United Way Suncoast’s education efforts, extending its ability to build the capacity of its nonprofit partners and helping the organization take on the emerging issues of the day, be it pandemic relief, the housing crisis, or disaster recovery.

In the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024, supported immediate relief while focusing on mid- and long-term recovery. To date, United Way Suncoast has distributed more than $1.2 million from its Together We Recover Fund to nonprofit relief efforts.  

Muroff also has played a pivotal role in reorganizing the UWS staff and reinvigorating its culture. Muroff and her leadership team drew high marks in a staff employee survey for creating a welcoming workplace environment that UWS employees would overwhelmingly recommend.

In establishing her leadership role, Muroff has created a legacy of change-making leadership, philanthropic goodwill and community care. She strives to be a model for other business and community leaders, as well as her as her family, including her four children. Her motto is “Be Present,” and that begins with her family, but also includes her civic engagement. 

She has extended her United Way involvement to serving as chair-elect on the United Way of Florida board and working closely with other local United Ways around the nation through United Way Worldwide’s National Presidents Roundtable. 

Beyond United Way Suncoast, Muroff served as the 2024-25 president of the prestigious Athena Society, and she co-chaired the Tampa Bay Partnership’s Housing Affordability Committee. 

“I greet each day with joy at the challenges I get to tackle with my team,” Muroff says. “It is important to me to lead an impactful, supportive, and collaborative nonprofit to maximize our community benefit. This is why our work is critical because we are not just providing services at United Way Suncoast, we are having exponential community impact by bringing the best programs and services together in a collective impact model to serve our region.” 

Muroff joined United Way Suncoast in November 2019 after establishing a record of transformative change as the CEO of Girl Scouts of West Central Florida (2015-2019) and the CEO of Frameworks of Tampa Bay (2013-2015). She has extended her list of professional achievements since assuming the top role at UWS, an organization committed to creating lasting community change.

Her leadership has proved a beacon in the community and within the organization.

Beyond United Way Suncoast, Muroff served as the 2024-25 president of the prestigious Athena Society, and she co-chaired the Tampa Bay Partnership’s Housing Affordability Committee. 

Her accomplishments have earned her inclusion on Florida Trend’s Florida 500 list of most influential business leaders in 2023 and 2024. Organizations often seek her expertise in speaking engagements about leadership and planning, given that she earned a graduate certificate in strategic foresight from the University of Houston in 2021. That educational achievement added to her master’s and bachelor’s degrees from the University of South Florida. 

Her success has not gone unnoticed. Muroff recently added to her list of honors with her inclusion on Florida Trend’s Florida 500 in 2023 and 2024, a listing of the state’s most influential business leaders. In 2023, Tampa Bay Business and Wealth named her as one of its Tampa Bay Business Women Of The Year. In past years, she was awarded the Deanne Dewey Roberts Emerging Leader Award from the Greater Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce (2014), USF’s Zimmerman School of Advertising and Mass Communications Outstanding Alumni (2018), and Business Professional Women’s Woman of the Year (2019). Jessica also has received several significant awards from the Tampa Bay Business Journal. In 2023, she was included on the journal’s Power 100 list for the second consecutive year. She’s also been honored by the journal as Young Business Woman of the Year of 2005, Up & Comers Hall of Fame in 2013 and Business Woman of the Year in 2018. 

Muroff’s latest list of UWS accomplishments points to a brighter future for the organization, but they don’t come as a surprise to those who have followed her ascension as a Suncoast leader. She’s utilizing the same skill set that has helped her enjoy success at other stops: nonprofit executive experience, business savvy, and community care.

In her four years at the Girl Scouts of West Central Florida, Muroff led a nonprofit that served nearly 19,500 girls and nearly 8,500 adult members in Citrus, Hernando, Hillsborough, Marion, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk, and Sumter counties. Her efforts included creating Camp CEO, a leadership seminar that allowed aspiring teenage girls to network with some of the region’s top women leaders. At Frameworks of Tampa Bay,  she helped the social and emotions learning advocacy group increase the number of youth served, developed new partnerships, and increased community recognition.

Muroff also has worked on the corporate side as a Raymond James Financial manager of account services, marketing director at Saks Fifth Avenue, and account executive at Roberts Communications.