Kathi Dantley Warren has 25 years of advancement leadership experience at higher education and academic medical institutions in $1B+ campaigns. Most recently, she served as vice president for development and alumni relations at Rice University where she launched a $2B campaign, the largest at a private institution in TX. At Rice, she also led a team of 150 with responsibility for principal and major gifts, gift planning, alumni relations, corporate and foundation relations, presidential events, donor relations, annual giving, marketing and communications, and advancement services. 

Under her leadership, Rice set new fundraising records in fiscal years 2021 and 2022, and also broke a record for giving to the Rice Annual Fund, while steadily growing annual fund participation. In 2020, she led Rice to securing its first nine-figure gift, followed by a second in 2021. She established new standards for organizational excellence within the development and alumni relations division by implementing a division-wide annual planning process and instituting a slate of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. 

Prior to Rice, Dantley Warren served as senior executive director of development at the Duke University Cancer Institute, where they successfully completed a $200 million campaign. From 2010 to 2014, she served as assistant dean for alumni affairs and development at Cornell University’s College of Engineering, where she developed and implemented the college’s first alumni affairs and development strategic plan and alumni engagement plan and increased annual revenues from $22.7 million to more than $56 million. 

She spent eight years at the University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business, ultimately serving as campaign director, and was a major gift officer at The Johns Hopkins University Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.

Dantley Warren earned a masters degree in cellular and molecular biology from Duke University and a bachelors in biology from Hampton University. Originally from Northern Virginia, she is an avid sports enthusiast and dog-rescue advocate who also enjoys travel, cooking and painting.

Marc A. Barnes serves as Senior Vice President, Principal Gifts and Strategic Impact Investment at UNCF where he works directly with the President & CEO to strengthen financial support for strategic impact initiatives. In this capacity, he is responsible for the president’s strategic fundraising activities and leading a team to identify opportunities to broaden UNCF’s philanthropic revenue.

Barnes is an accomplished fund development officer who has more than two decades of experience in higher education and nonprofit management. Throughout his career, he has been an asset to leadership, having worked closely with university presidents, executives, and governing boards to raise capital for strategic goals and initiatives. 

Prior to joining UNCF, Barnes served as Vice President of Institutional Advancement at Dillard University, one of  UNCF’s 37 historically Black college and university (HBCU) member institutions. While at Dillard, Barnes directed strategic planning and operations for fundraising, public relations, community relations, marketing and communications and strategic alumni giving initiatives from. Under his leadership, the university raised over $150 million, increased the alumni giving rate to 23%, secured the largest alumni donation on record in the amount of $1 million, and received more than $10 million from private individuals for strategic initiatives. In previous roles, Barnes served Dillard as Assistant President for Development and Alumni Relations and Director of Major Gifts.  

During his term as Director of Development for the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival & Foundation, Barnes helped to create and deploy a growth-focused development program and capital campaign. His leadership garnered over $8 million to complete a capital campaign dedicated to building the George & Joyce Wein Jazz & Heritage Center, stimulated fundraising by more than 200%, and increased annual gala net revenue by 400%.  

Barnes earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing at Xavier University of Louisiana, a master of arts in philanthropy & development at LaGrange College, and a doctorate in urban higher education administration at Jackson State University.  He is also a Certified Fundraising Executive (CFRE).

He is a past recipient of the Fr. Charles Hall Award (Alumnus of the Year) at St. Augustine High School, and has been recognized by the Association of Fundraising Professionals-Greater New Orleans Chapter and HBCU Grow for his fundraising leadership and innovation.  

Barnes serves on a number of boards and committees, including the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Commission on Philanthropy, the Association of Fundraising Professionals – Greater New Orleans Chapter Board of Directors, and  the St. Augustine High School Board of Directors. He also co-chairs the CASE Advanced Development Strategies Conference and serves on the faculty for the CASE Conference on Leadership Development. He and his wife, Dr. Kiki Baker Barnes, have two children, Caitlin and Marc, Jr. 

April Cole has been at Rice University since fall 2018 and currently serves as the director of alumni programs. Her areas of responsibility and team management include student engagement, online mentoring, digital education, lifelong learning, Traveling Owls, and young alumni programs, in addition to signature events such as Homecoming & Reunion and Families Weekend. Prior to Rice, April spent six years in Silicon Valley as the associate director of alumni & community engagement at San Jose State University, where she established the institution’s first student & alumni engagement program, alumni mentorship program, and student scholar program. April also led Indiana University Bloomington's undergraduate scholarship-eligible student recruitment for the Office of Enrollment Management and spent six years directing outreach and development at Florida Campus Compact in Tallahassee, a higher education non-profit that collaborated with more than fifty college and university presidents to establish service learning, civic engagement, and social responsibility on their respective campuses.

April holds a bachelor’s in social work and a master’s in higher education with an emphasis in student affairs from Florida State University. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the Higher Education Leadership and Policy Studies Program at the University of Houston.

With 27 years of experience in higher education advancement, David Lively has directed successful development strategies across five comprehensive fundraising campaigns. Lively joined Northwestern University in January 2012 and in his current role manages "We Will. The Campaign for Northwestern," a $5 billion University-wide fundraising campaign. Additionally, he oversees a team of 60 development professionals responsible for principal gifts, regional and international major gifts (including offices in New York and San Francisco), and gift planning.

Lively earned a bachelor's degree in history from Southern Methodist University, a master's degree in history from Colorado State University, an MBA from the University of Denver's Daniels College of Business, and a certificate from the Management Development Program at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. In April 2017, he authored Managing Major Gift Fundraisers: A Contrarian's Guide (published by CASE).

Holly Wolk serves as the executive director for talent management and administration for the University of Rochester and oversees recruitment, employee engagement, professional development, and employee services for more than 250 advancement professionals. In this capacity, she works with senior leadership to develop and build the next generation of advancement professionals. Her focus and passion is on helping advancement professionals develop career paths that are beneficial to themselves and the organization. During Wolk's tenure, the University of Rochester has worked to redefine its recruitment strategy from focusing on external recruitment efforts to developing staff and promoting from within the organization.

Prior to coming to the University of Rochester, Wolk held similar talent management roles at Tufts University and Boston University, where she also managed the university's employment and training function. She began her career in alumni relations at Carnegie Mellon, before transitioning to Carnegie Mellon's organizational development and human capital management department.

She has a master's degree in human resource management from Carnegie Mellon and more than 18 years of advancement experience. She has served as a presenter and faculty at CASE previously, and enjoys sharing best practices with her talent management colleagues.