James Allan is the Director of Alumni and Stakeholder Relations at the University of Melbourne, where he leads efforts to engage alumni and others to support the University and its students, through alumni relations, regular giving programs, events and communications.

Holding a PhD in Communications from the University of Massachusetts Amherst along with degrees from University of Toronto and McGill University, James spent over 10 years in Alumni Relations at York University in Toronto before joining the team at the University of Melbourne. 

Joel joined SUMS Consulting, the not-for-profit charity owned by universities, as its Managing Consultant and Group Head of Business Development in 2019. He is also the professional lead at SUMS for branding, marketing and student recruitment assignments.

A graduate of the University of Edinburgh, Joel spent the early years of his career working in marketing roles and at advertising agencies across a wide range of clients, including Marks and Spencer, Rolls-Royce and the Royal Bank of Scotland. His transition into the higher education sector followed two years working with the Open University’s marketing agency as their Client Services Director and an adviser on brand and direct marketing. Joel became the University of Central Lancashire’s first Director of Marketing and Communications in 2010. A passionate strategic marketer, communications expert and senior leader he was promoted to Pro Vice-Chancellor (External Relations) with responsibility for external engagement and policy shaping.

Erica Arroyo is the Associate Vice President of Engagement at the University of Miami. She has been with the University for 15 years and is responsible for the following areas: lifelong engagement of alumni, parents, faculty/staff, and friends of the University through a variety of programming; family relations, which includes the Parents Program, legacy admission, and student engagement; volunteer leadership development including the management of five leadership boards, campaign volunteer leader development, and overall University best-practices for advisory groups; and management of an annual giving and digital engagement team responsible for solicitations under $50,000.

She most recently served as Interim Associate Vice President of Alumni Relations and Annual Giving, and Executive Director of Development, Alumni Relations. During her time at the University of Miami Erica has launched several new programs including Meet the CEO, ’Canes Day of Service, ’Canes Community Scholarship Challenge, massive open online courses for alumni, and the University’s first ever Giving Day which raised $1.5 million in 2019. She was also integral in leading the Alumni Association’s third strategic planning process that lasts until the year 2025.

Erica has received 10 CASE awards during her career, including the 2015-2016 Grand Award for the CASE International Platinum category of Best Practices in Alumni Relations for District III, for the University’s comprehensive legacy engagement program. Erica served on the CASE III planning committee from 2015-2017 as co-chair for the alumni track, and served as director of volunteer engagement for the CASE III Board of Directors from 2017-2019. She is currently serving as secretary of the CASE III Board of Directors until 2021. She is a member of the ACC Alumni Directors group and has served as a guest speaker at various conferences, the most recent being the 2019 CASE International Conference on Alumni Engagement.

Erica earned a Bachelor’s of Science in Communication, with concentrations in Broadcast Journalism and Theatre, and a Master’s of Liberal Studies from the University of Miami. Prior to her role at the University, she managed the Board of Trustees at Florida International University.

With over 16 years experience in leadership roles within Alumni Relations, Sarah has experience in developing and delivering successful alumni programs in both mature and immature advancement operations within Australia.  Her current role as Deputy Director of Alumni and Stakeholders Relations and Head of Alumni Relations at the University of Melbourne sees her responsible for both strategy development and overseeing operations to engage a growing alumni community of over 420,000 alumni globally.  Along with the Melbourne team, Sarah has driven a public alumni engagement target as part of the successful Believe campaign for the University of Melbourne. The campaign aims to raise $1 billion by 2021 while engaging 100,000 individual alumni as ambassadors, volunteers and donors.  Coupled with her past experience heading up Alumni Relations for Victoria University and William Angliss Institute, Sarah also has an extensive background in both Australia and the UK in the corporate sector.

As Head of Legacies at The Royal Marsden Cancer Charity, Charlie is responsible for legacy fundraising, stewardship, marketing and legacy administration. The charity raises money solely to support The Royal Marsden Hospital, a world-leading cancer centre. Charlie has worked in the charity, healthcare and higher education sectors with over 12 years’ experience in legacies.  

Boi Carpenter currently serves as senior associate vice president for development and alumni relations at The Johns Hopkins University. She partners with the vice president for development and alumni relations (DAR) and other development leadership to drive progress in such key operational areas as DAR organizational development and growth, human resources and talent management, information technology and prospect strategy, campaign operations, finance and strategic planning. She oversees the development programs for the university’s Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Whiting School of Engineering, Sheridan Libraries, Homewood Athletics and Parents Programs. She works closely with institutional leadership including the university’s president, provost and deans to advance all aspects of engagement and fundraising and sits on the Johns Hopkins University Development and Alumni Relations Executive Team.

Kat Carter has worked within the Higher Education and Not for Profit sectors for over 11 years. As Hubbub's resident digital fundraising specialist, Kat is passionate about empowering those she works with to feel confident in their own success - providing best practice guidance and strategic insights that deliver results worth celebrating. Previous to joining Hubbub, Kat managed the Regular Giving programme at the University of Southampton where she helped to launch one of the first UK crowdfunding platforms.

Jessica is an experienced Relationship Manager with a demonstrated history of working in the higher education sector. In her current role, she works closely with graduates from the Schools of Social Policy and Government to enhance students employability and developing engagement opportunities that keep alumni in touch with the University. Jessica’s background is in Student Recruitment and engagement, Widening Participation and Outreach, and led the coordination of the award-winning Lloyds Scholars programme at the University for a number of years before moving into her current role.  Jessica is passionate about supporting Social Mobility and increasing access to and participation in Higher Education for students from underrepresented groups. Jess is extremely proud to be co-chair of the CASE multi-cultural network, a University of Birmingham BAME staff network member, and a supporter of the Independent panel members group at the University, ensuring diversity and representation on recruitment panels.

Penny is a chartered marketer and Fellow of the CIM. Prior to setting up her own consultancy, she worked in Higher Education marketing and student recruitment for 20 years at several universities, most recently as Director of Marketing and Communications on the Executive team at Nottingham Trent University. Penny is working in collaboration with UCAS to show universities how they can achieve student recruitment growth.

She is a HEIST Awards panel chair and an annual speaker at the AdvanceHE Aurora Leadership conference for women.

Ruth Gabler-Schachermayr joined The Eliminate Project and Kiwanis International in October 2011 as Campaign Director Europe. The goal of Kiwanis’ worldwide service project was to eliminate maternal and neonatal tetanus in 35 countries around the world, by raising USD 110 million by 2015. Ruth managed and lead the fundraising campaign in Europe, for more than US$12 million raised, as well as the service leadership programs (Kiwanis youth programs), for more than US$7 million raised.

Starting point of Ruth‘s career was in education in Europe, where she started a Children and Youth University "Junge Uni Krems" and managed the concept for five years. In 2009, she was awarded with a Fulbright Scholarship to enhance her education in the United States to receive her Master in Public Affairs (MPA) with a special focus on Nonprofit Management.

For the past 15 years, Ruth has been working in fundraising management, consulting NGOS and building up fundraising departments, recently for Fulbright Austria – the Austrian-American Educational Commission. In addition, she has been engaged with JCI (Junge Wirtschaft) for the past 10 years, currently as European Development Councilor as well as executive board member of JCI Vienna.

Dr Maria Gallo has over 20 years as a scholar, and higher education professional in strategic planning, alumni relations and development. Maria is the former Director of Lifelong Learning and Engagement at St Angela’s College, Sligo and is currently a Research Fellow with the Community Knowledge Initiative at the Institute for Lifecourse and Society at NUI Galway. As the Founder of the social enterprise KITE- Keep in Touch Education, Maria undertakes research, consultancy and education projects to promote alumni connections in life for life and fostering active global alumni citizens. Along with her TEDx talk on alumni, Maria is a regular speaker at education and philanthropy conferences worldwide. Maria completed her doctoral studies in alumni relationships at the University of Sheffield and her undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto. As Chair of the Sligo Volunteer Centre, she led the successful bid for European Volunteering Capital for Sligo in 2017.  She has several academic publications on alumni relations and remains actively involved in all five of her alma maters in Canada, Ireland and the UK.

Mark has spent over 33 years in Marketing and Customer Relationship Management in a variety of high-profile private and public sector organisations worldwide.

In his early years he was Marketing Director for Principality Building Society in Wales and Head of Customer Management for Royal & Sun Alliance (responsible for leading Customer Management for the launch of MORETH>N), before running his own CRM consultancy, helping over 30 companies worldwide to develop effective customer management practices.

He was instrumental in setting up Confused.com, before taking up a senior interim management career with organisations such as Open University, Royal Bank of Scotland Plc, Yell Group Plc, British Airways and Barnardos.

Latterly he has been Director of Marketing, Communications and Student Recruitment for City University London, the University of West London and Director of External Affairs for the University of Bradford, where he led a multi-award winning team. He was recently appointed as Interim Director of Marketing, Recruitment and International at Swansea University. 

He is Vice-Chair of the Universities Marketing Forum, as we as being a Board Member of Leeds City College, Bradford UNESCO City of Film and the Bradford Literature Festival. He is a campaigner for equality, diversity and inclusion and is an ambassador for AWLO (African Women in Leadership Organisation) and the White Ribbon campaign.

Jonathan Goode is a marketing, communications and alumni relations professional with more than 10 years’ experience in the education sector. As Head of Alumni Relations at Bournemouth University, he is developing the institution’s approach to alumni engagement, with a focus on enriching the student experience and enhancing graduate employability. Jonathan has overseen the development and launch of a new volunteering programme, including a mentoring scheme designed to help final year students make the successful transition into employment. He is an active contributor to sector events and commentary and his team’s work was shortlisted for a HEIST Education Award in 2019.

Oliver has worked at the University of Oxford for over a decade and has held several leadership roles in the areas of campaign strategy, fundraising, stewardship, and communications.

Oliver oversees Oxford’s donor recognition and stewardship programmes, legacy fundraising and marketing, high-profile events, and legal training, and played a key role in the successful completion of the Oxford Thinking Campaign.  

Oliver has also worked in advancement at the University of Cambridge and as a corporate fundraiser at the British Red Cross, raising funds for vulnerable communities in the UK and overseas.

David J. Haines is Head of Philanthropy, University Programmes at the University of Edinburgh. His fundraising remit spans major gifts for strategic priorities across the University, chief among which is widening participation.

David started his fundraising career at youth charity, Venture Trust, before moving into Educational Advancement at the University of Stirling. He joined Edinburgh in early 2019 from the Development office of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, where he developed and launched Monash’s first comprehensive fundraising campaign ‘Change it. For good.’, now well ahead of schedule to raise half a billion dollars from 50,000 donors. Please don’t ask him if he’s missing the weather.

Outside of work, he is mostly on a Scottish beach with his young family and not writing about himself in the third person.

Andrew is Co-Founder of dataHE, an experienced Executive Director with expertise in customer behaviour and data driven marketing.

With a 10 year career in strategic consulting, Andrew has helped many leadership teams and their organisations improve business performance.  His work has included highly regulated markets, consumer protection, and regulatory development.
 
Previously Andrew was at UCAS holding several roles, including Director of Marketing and Customer, and Director of UCAS Media during the formative years of the ‘HE Market’ as both data and marketing rose in importance. Working closely with Higher Education Providers, schools and students in this period has given him a full understanding of applicant behaviour and university recruitment performance. He has a deep understanding of data in marketing

James is Head of the Development & Alumni Relations at Sheffield Hallam University where he established the University’s fundraising operations 5 years ago.  He has over twenty years’ experience of across advancement from roles in development services to alumni engagement and major gifts and is passionate about the transformative role that Development & Alumni Relations teams can play in shaping our universities response to the challenges highlighted by Covid19.

Gerard has spent the last 17 years working in fundraising and alumni relations. Starting his career at Cardiff University he then spent eight years working with independent international schools as the Head of Alumni Relations and Annual Giving for UWC Atlantic College. After joining Swansea University in 2018 he has been focussing on building relationships with alumni and creating opportunities for alumni to get more involved with the University.

Tim has over 10 years’ experience in senior Higher Education marketing roles at the University of Cambridge, Cambridge Judge Business School and London Business School. In these roles, he was responsible for recruitment, B2B, partnerships, international marketing and leading brand, CRM and student experience projects. 

Tim has been at SMRS for over a year and works in Ed’s team delivering consultancy projects covering areas like segmentation, persona development, student journey mapping, content strategy and market research.

Ed has over 17 years’ experience in marketing and communications, with 12 years in leadership and consulting roles. He led the marketing and recruitment teams at the University of Hertfordshire for 6 years and has provided consulting services to over 90 organisations across the UK and Europe to develop their portfolio, communications and brand experience strategies.

Katie Lightfoot trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, having first graduated from the University of Birmingham with a degree in Drama & Theatre Arts. After graduating with an MSc in Gender from the London School of Economics, she worked as a freelance diversity consultant across schools and organisations. This led her into the tech start up world, finding solutions to increase gender parity in FTSE 250 companies. As an actor, she has performed widely on stage for the National Theatre, Theatre Royal Bath, Peter Hall Company and Shared Experience, and on television, including The Turn of the Screw (BBC) and Code of a Killer (ITV). She has also written for the RADA Festival. As a tutor for RADA Business, Lightfoot co-develops and delivers on its leadership programmes. She enjoys bringing creativity and spontaneity to a business context, particularly through improvisation.

Kenon is Deputy Director of Marketing at University of Nottingham. He has held digital and recruitment roles in the International Development Office and has a keen interest in all things digital and content marketing, and how digital tools impacts on organisational culture and behaviour.

As a music graduate, Kenon has previously worked in the Arts sector and was involved in a number of widening participation arts projects and outreach work to help diversify participation in the arts.

Born and raised in the Welsh Valleys, he is 1st generation Chinese and was involved in the Race Equality Charter assessment team at Swansea. Kenon was also the inaugural recipient of the CASE Europe Emerging Marketing and Communication Professional Award.

Carly joined the University of Oxford as Head of Development for Medical Sciences in 2018. Previously, Carly served as the Director of Development at the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University, where she oversaw the campaign to raise funds to support innovative teacher preparation programmes.

Carly also worked at the University of Texas at Austin, in the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement as their Director of Development, raising funds to support programmes that increased access for underrepresented students.

Meredith joined Marie Curie in 2013, taking up her current role as Executive Director of Fundraising and Engagement in October 2017. Her Directorate encompasses Fundraising, Retail, Marketing and Communications, Digital, and Policy and Public Affairs. 

Before joining Marie Curie, Meredith worked as an Investment Director at venture philanthropy foundation Impetus-Private Equity Fund and at Goldman Sachs, where she was latterly an Executive Director in the Investment Banking Division.  

Meredith gives her time as a trustee of Plan International UK and Trust for London. She earned a BA with Highest Distinction and Highest Honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MSc from the London School of Economics.

Peter joined the Global Development team at Imperial College in December 2017 where he is Head of Development (Asia). He is responsible for raising philanthropic support for the College across East and Southeast Asia. Usually, this involves travelling regularly to meet with alumni and supporters, but the ongoing pandemic provides both the opportunity to engage the world from his study as well as the challenge of having the same impact as in person engagement. Peter acts as a point of contact across the advancement division with respect to working in Asia, and assists with alumni relations and other activity in the region alongside his core fundraising activities.

Prior to joining Imperial College London, Peter worked for Merton College, University of Oxford, in regular giving and subsequently major gifts. Whilst completing his studies at Oxford as a student, Peter first worked in fundraising as a student caller, and later a student supervisor, at the University of Oxford Development Office. He holds a Batchelor’s Degree in Theology, from St. Peter’s College, University of Oxford.

Claire is responsible for the high quality delivery of engagement programmes at the University of Birmingham, which includes tailored programming for a variety of audiences (alumni, supporters, parents, staff, students and friends).  The team are responsible for creating warm audiences who are inspired to give their time, philanthropic support and networks for the benefit of the University and students. Claire leads the international fundraising and engagement strategy, with an ambitious goal of creating a sustainable pipeline of income and engaged supporters in key international markets.

Claire has worked at the University of Birmingham since 2003 and has held a variety of roles in the team including Head of Alumni Relations from 2011, a portfolio which was expanded to Supporter Engagement in 2014. Claire was Acting Director of Development and Alumni Relations from August – December 2015, leading the team through the close and celebration phases of the University’s £193.6million Circles of Influence campaign. Claire has been an active volunteer with CASE for several years and is co-Chair of the alumni relations track at the Europe Annual Conference (2017-18) and a member of the Alumni Relations Institute Faculty (2017-18).

Ben joined LSE in February 2018. Ben serves as one of nine members of the university’s leadership team, has strategic oversight for philanthropy, alumni engagement, corporate engagement, international strategy, and global academic partnerships, and leads on the most significant philanthropic opportunities, travelling extensively overseas. Since joining LSE, Ben has created and overseen the launch of LSE’s Shaping the World philanthropic and volunteering Campaign, with an initial goal to raise £350m. In 2021-22 LSE raised nearly £95m. Ben is also a senior inclusivity champion for LSE and more widely.

Outside of LSE, Ben is Chair of the Ross Group and is a Board member for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE Europe) and this year is serving on the CASE Global Advancement Leaders’ Summit Planning Committee. Prior to LSE, Ben worked at Oxford University for eight years, overseeing the University’s fundraising teams, where the Oxford Thinking Campaign grew from £800m to £2.7bn. Prior to Oxford, Ben spent 10 years at Warwick University, initially in international marketing and recruitment, then overseeing philanthropy, alumni and corporate engagement at Warwick Business School and serving the wider University leading on international philanthropy in East Asia.

Having secured a scholarship to attend a private secondary school, and having received funding for undergraduate and graduate study, Ben is a passionate advocate of social mobility and the role of education for the betterment of society.

Christian Pröpper has vast experience overseas and he has led on the creation and implementation of fundraising campaigns and appeals at the University of Oxford for causes such as student support, access to water in Africa, better facilities and activities for the elderly at the Ashmolean Museum and the conservation of maps and books at the Bodleian libraries.  His team also delivers reporting and insights across all fundraising activities for the University and its independent colleges.

Since February 2021, Chris has been working for Marlborough College (a private school south of Oxford) as Associate Director (Development Operations), where he is preparing the College for an ambitious £50m fundraising campaign to increase the number of free places available.

Chris has worked in development over 20 years: within higher education, the school sector, and is also a Senior Advisor at Halpin, a higher education consultancy in the UK.  Over the years, Chris has merged his regular giving and fundraising skills with skills in data management, system process, analytical and insight.  He has developed a variety of techniques, including Culture of Giving Scores, engagement matrices and bespoke prospect management systems to help fundraisers prioritise their activities across a variety of charitable organisations. 

Chris is an alumnus of the Universities of Southampton and Liverpool.  In his spare time, Chris runs Propper-Fundraising.com – a free learning resource collating the best fundraising-related blogs in one place.

With 30 years of experience in international education, Sandra is an expert, trainer and author on international student-alumni engagement.

She co-authored “Engaging International Alumni as Strategic Partner” (NAFSA, 2021) and founded the NL alumni network-Netherlands. She chairs the EAIE´s Alumni Relations Expert Community. She also hosts Brite Ideas, a podcast for advancement professionals and co-edited “The Alumni Connection: Insights and Strategies from Experts” both sponsored by Hivebrite. Sandra is currently completing a PhD on the role of student-alumni engagement in fostering the Sustainable Development Goals. She´s a life-time alumni member of UC Davis Alumni Association and an alum of UC Irvine and California State University, Fullerton in USA.

Louise is Campaign Events Manager for the Development and Alumni Relations team at Durham University. She is currently lead for the Durham Inspired: Live in Lockdown event series working with the Deputy Director of Alumni Engagement to deliver academic insights, career resources and global support network events to our alumni, donors, students, staff and friends during Covid-19. Louise has many years’ experience delivering successful in-person events within the arts and heritage sector for a diverse range of audiences and stakeholders.

Justin Shaw is a global consultant addressing issues of reputation, communications, engagement, influence and media performance in HE. He worked in the Communications Office of the University of Hertfordshire before establishing the UK's first consulting practice in higher education communications - supporting 250 clients (including 125 universities around the world). His early career was as a chief reporter, feature writer, news editor, and columnist and he was recognised as a Reporter of the Year.

Anita has vast experience serving for thirty years as volunteer in non profit academic organizations. In her professional life after ten years career in IT industry management positions she moved to management of Non-profit organizations. Anita has ten years’ experience serving in RTU as executive director of Alumni association and recently RTU Development Fund. Anita is also RTU associate professor, passionate lecturer of business process management and inquisitive researcher with particular interest in alumni knowledge management.

Richard Taylor became the Chief Operating Officer for Loughborough University in September 2013. Previously Richard was the Deputy Registrar (and before that Director of Corporate Affairs & Planning) at the University of Leicester. He joined Leicester in 2003 after holding posts at Durham and Loughborough universities.

He grew up in Barnsley, South Yorkshire and attended Barnsley College before studying at Durham University where he was Students’ Union President in 1994-5.

He lives local to Loughborough and is married with two children.

Martine Torfs, Head of the Alumni Office at the KU Leuven Fundraising and Alumni Relations Office, is responsible for engaging the worldwide alumni network. The Alumni Office's mission is to build and support the global community of KU Leuven alumni, advising and implementing strategies for alumni relations in close collaboration with Faculties and alumni associations. With a past experience in implementing the university's internationalisation strategy at the International Office, Martine is passionate about aligning alumni programmes and internationalization strategies and engaging stakeholders globally for their Alma Mater.

Thomas joined the University of Dundee in early 2015 to deliver strategic and executive leadership for the University’s external relations; the External Relations directorate is part of Professional Services and covers all aspects of the student life cycle from student recruitment and admissions (including international), widening access, public engagement and major events, marketing and communications, web-services, design and print as well as development and alumni relations.

After graduating from Tübingen University, Germany in 1992, Thomas joined Guinness Plc as part of their executive graduate trainee scheme and subsequently worked for over 15 years in marketing roles in the UK and internationally, amongst others for Diageo and Scottish-Newcastle.

Since 2007 he has worked in various higher education roles, amongst others Head of International Office at De Montfort University and Director of Student Recruitment for the University of Birmingham. Before joining the University of Dundee Thomas was the Director of External Relations at the University of Leicester. He is interested in UK and international HE policy and is a non-executive board member and trustee of Dundee Contemporary Arts (DCA).

Kate Walker Miles trained at RADA and has a degree in Experimental Psychology from Oxford University. Her training work allows her to combine two of her fascinations – performance and psychology. In addition to her core communications and presentations offerings, she also specializes in 'Off The Cuff' speaking and on-camera presentations. Clients include: Morgan Stanley, Discovery Channel, Channel 4, Ten UK, Oxentia, PA Consulting, Leeds University, and UCL. She offers large masterclasses, group training, and one-to-one personal coaching. Walker Miles is an experienced actor, appearing at the RSC and the Young Vic, in movies, and extensively on TV. She played the lead in Channel 4’s improvised comedy series The Work Experience. She finds humour a very useful tool in her training work. Prior to becoming an actor, Walker Miles was a Hollywood reporter, and produced the TV shows The Big Breakfast and The Word. She has trained many TV presenters who are now household names.

Anna has worked in both the charity sector and higher education fundraising for more than 17 years and currently oversees Imperial College London’s regular giving and legacy giving programmes. Anna has successfully built and grown legacy programmes in a number of organisations and more recently, has developed expertise in regular giving and mid-value fundraising at Imperial. 
 
Her specialisms are multi-channel donor acquisition, upgrade and stewardship to the few and to the many, across all levels of giving. She also has broad experience in face to face fundraising, direct mail and telephone fundraising, supporter journey, database management, events and long-term strategic planning for fundraising programmes. Anna is also accustomed to working with colleagues across all areas of Advancement including fundraising and alumni relations to maximise opportunities for collaboration and a donor centric approach to fundraising.

Laura has 10 years’ experience fundraising in the arts and culture sector. She has worked in fundraising teams in organisations including the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and the Design Museum. Laura is currently Development Director at the London Philharmonic Orchestra overseeing all areas of fundraising including individual giving, sponsorship and corporate partnerships, trusts and foundations, stewardship and fundraising events.