Candice Storey Lee is Vanderbilt’s vice chancellor for athletics and university affairs and athletic director.
Named to the position on May 21, 2020, Lee is Vanderbilt’s first female athletic director and the first Black woman to head an SEC athletics program.
A former member of the Vanderbilt women’s basketball team, Lee has earned undergraduate, master’s and doctorate degrees from Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development and has been an inspirational leader in athletics and the wider Vanderbilt community since arriving on campus as a first-year student in 1996.
Lee began her athletics administration career at Vanderbilt in 2002, serving first as an academic adviser and then compliance director. Working under the late athletic director David Williams, Lee was named the department’s senior woman administrator in 2004, a responsibility she held until 2020. She also assumed the title of deputy athletic director in 2016, overseeing the day-to-day operations of the athletic department and serving as the sport administrator for football and women’s basketball.
A team captain, four-year letter winner, and five-time SEC Academic Honor Roll selection as a member of the Vanderbilt’s women’s basketball team, Lee battled through knee injuries and helped lead the Commodores to an SEC Tournament championship in her final season (2002). She graduated from Vanderbilt with a bachelor of science degree in human and organizational development in 2000, received her master’s degree in counseling in 2002 and a doctorate in higher education administration in 2012.
Lee has been recognized by peers and media as one of the leading young administrators in college athletics. Following Vanderbilt’s historic competitive and philanthropic success in 2025–26, Lee was honored by the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame as the 2026 Tennessean of the Year and Sports Business Journal as the 2026 Athletic Director of the Year. She is a two-time finalist for the Sports Business Journal award.
The National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics honored her as a recipient of the 2024-25 NACDA AD of the Year Award. Architect of Vanderbilt’s unprecedented Vandy United capital campaign, she was also recognized as the 2024 Sandy Barbour Nike Division I FBS Executive of the Year and 2022 Black Student-Athlete Summit’s Athletic Director of the Year.
Sports Business Journal named her to its college sports “Power Players” list in 2019, and Adidas named her to its “NEXT UP” class in 2018. In addition, Lee was the recipient of the John McClendon Scholarship for Black administrators in 2017.
A model student-athlete at Bob Jones High School in Madison, Alabama, she was named to the 2022 class of the Huntsville-Madison County (Ala.) Athletic Hall of Fame.
Beyond her duties at Vanderbilt, Lee is a leader in college athletics at a national level. She has served as a member of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Competition Committee, NCAA Women’s Basketball Rules Committee and as chair of the NCAA Division I Women’s Lacrosse Committee. In 2025, she was appointed to serve on the NCAA Women’s Basketball Committee. She also previously served on the executive committee of the Black Athletic Directors Alliance
Lee has also built deep roots as a longtime fixture in the Nashville community. She currently serves or has served on the boards of directors for the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame and Nashville Sports Council. She was named a 2019–20 fellow of the Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association’s executive leadership institute and is a graduate of the 2012 class of Leadership Nashville and the 2012 Vanderbilt Leadership Academy. In 2021, Lee received Peabody College’s Distinguished Alumna Award. Members of Vanderbilt’s student-athlete advisory committee awarded Lee their inaugural staff appreciation award in 2022 in recognition of her leadership through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lee is committed to a vision that one of the world’s preeminent academic institutions in one of the nation’s best cities can thrive in the most competitive athletic conference in college sports. Working in partnership with Chancellor Daniel Diermeier, she led development of the Vandy United Fund in 2021, part of the university’s historic Dare to Grow campaign. The unprecedented and ongoing investment in athletics reflects the university’s commitment to empowering student-athletes to realize their full potential on and off the field.
During Lee’s time at Vanderbilt, student-athletes have won six team and three individual national championships in baseball (two), bowling (three), men’s golf, women’s tennis and women’s track and field. Vanderbilt teams have also won more than 20 conference championships and tournament titles, including baseball, men’s and women’s basketball, bowling, women’s cross country, men’s and women’s golf, lacrosse, soccer, women’s tennis and track and field.
Additionally, the football team has played in seven bowl games since breaking a 26-year bowl drought in 2008, During Lee’s time as athletic director, the football team appeared in back-to-back bowl games following the 2024—25 seasons, set a school record for overall and SEC wins in 2025 and featured two-time SEC Coach of the Year Clark Lea and SEC Offensive Player of the Year and Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award winner Diego Pavia—Vanderbilt’s first Heisman Trophy finalist.
Lee’s commitment to a well-rounded student-athlete experience is evident in Vanderbilt’s academic record. In 2023-24, five Commodore programs recorded perfect APR marks. During the spring semester, Vanderbilt student-athletes posted a collective 3.44 GPA, the 29th consecutive semester with an Athletics GPA of better than 3.00. In all, 49 student-athletes had perfect 4.0 GPAs, while 189 made the Dean’s List.
Lee is married to Sean Lee, the executive director of a Middle Tennessee housing authority. They have an adult son, Andrew.