Speakers
Meet the Speakers!
Sandra Campero
Sandra Campero serves as the assistant vice chancellor for advancement operations for university advancement. She oversees the prospect development and donor relations units to support campus-wide fundraising efforts. In 2016, she received UCI's Staff Assembly Excellence in Leadership Award for her leadership of the IT, data management, donor relations and prospect development units. This distinction is awarded to individuals who inspire and engage their employees toward the goals of the organization, motivating contributions at the highest level.
Prior to joining UCI, she served as the senior director of research and prospect management at the Arizona State University Foundation (ASUF) where she led a new prospect management model to support the university's comprehensive fundraising priorities. In 2009, she was recognized with the 2009 Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Circle of Excellence Gold Award, for implementation of this model. Previously, she led the prospect research team at Loyola Marymount University (LMU) in support of its $380 million campaign, and worked for 11 years in advancement supporting a $2 billion campaign at the USC Keck School of Medicine.
Campero serves as a trustee for the APRA Foundation, and faculty for CASE's Summer Institute in Advancement Services. Additionally, she served on the board of directors of the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (APRA) and was the board liaison for the Ethics, Awards, and Governance Committees respectively. She is a past board member of the California Advancement Researchers Association (CARA) where she was chair of the Volunteer Committee and received the CARA Service Award, the highest honor bestowed by the organization. She is an active member of APRA, CARA and CASE and currently serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Education Advancement and Marketing. She is a member of the Association of Donor Relations Professionals (ADRP) and Association of Advancement Services Professionals (AASP).
Valerie Harris
Valerie Harris is Senior Director, Stewardship Communications at the University of Pennsylvania. Since 2011, Valerie has built a diverse, award-winning team of seven that produces donor correspondence for the highest levels of leadership, averaging over 3000 items annually. Additionally, the team prepares more than 1200 annual reports to scholarship donors and produces two editions annually of the Penn Parents publication. Valerie consistently promotes interdisciplinary training, process documentation, and professional development. She is pleased to lead a multitalented team that is adept at collaborating with fundraising officers and is fully engaged in stewardship communications and its role in supporting exemplary donor relations.
Heidi Rosano
Heidi Rosano is a dynamic advancement professional with over 17 years of experience in higher education and non-profit leadership. She has served in a blend of externally facing roles as well as internal, service-oriented positions focused on fundraising and promoting philanthropy that changes lives. She currently serves as the senior director of donor stewardship at her alma mater, the University of California, Irvine (UCI).
Before joining UCI, Heidi served nearly a decade at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy where she obtained multiple roles with increasing responsibilities managing and overseeing events, programming, alumni relations, annual fund, engagement, communications, and stewardship. Prior to her work at USC Price, Heidi worked at the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and the American Cancer Society where she led teams to raise funds through community support, events, and corporate giving campaigns.
Heidi has a proven track record of analyzing, enhancing, and centralizing processes by creating databases, training documents, onboarding materials, and launching internal councils and communications making her a go-to person known for collaboration and teamwork across the organizations she has worked for.
In addition to being a UCI Anteater with a degree in political science, Heidi graduated from Cal State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) with a master’s degree in public administration focused on non-profit organizational behavior and theory.
Ronald J. Schiller
Ron Schiller is a nationally recognized advisor to presidents, chief advancement officers, board members, and other leaders and emerging leaders in the nonprofit sector. Since 2011, he has focused his attention on executive search, strategic consulting, writing, and speaking about philanthropy, drawing on his experience as fundraising leader, executive team member, board member, and search consultant built over a 30-year career.
Ron has held leadership positions in seven educational and cultural institutions, including the University of Chicago, where he led a team of more than 450 that completed a $2.3 billion campaign and facilitated two nine-figure gifts. He serves on the faculty of the annual CASE conference, "Inspiring the Largest Gifts of a Lifetime" and has served as co-chair of CASE's Winter Institute for Chief Development Officers. He is the author of four books: The Chief Development Officer: Beyond Fundraising (Rowman & Littlefield); Belief and Confidence: Donors Talk About Successful Philanthropic Partnership (CASE), Raising Your Organization's Largest Gifts: A Principal Gifts Handbook (CASE), and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Advancement: A Guide to Strengthening Engagement and Fundraising Through Inclusion (CASE), co-authored with Angelique Grant. He is a regular speaker for regional and national conferences of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, CASE, the League of American Orchestras, and gift planning organizations, among others, and he is a recipient of CASE’s Crystal Apple Teaching Award.
Ron has served on the Cornell University Council and on the boards of the American Friends of Covent Garden, Chicago's Harris Theater for Music and Dance, the Cornell University Glee Club, the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Aspen’s Buddy Program, the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, the Salt Bay Chamberfest, and the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh.
Prior to founding the Aspen Leadership Group, he served as President of the NPR Foundation, Vice President for Alumni Relations and Development at the University of Chicago, and in various leadership roles at Carnegie Mellon University, Northeastern University, New England Conservatory of Music, and the Eastman School of Music. He began his career in philanthropy at Cornell during the university’s groundbreaking $1.25 billion campaign in the late 1980s.
Ron earned a bachelor’s degree at Cornell University.
Rebecca Tseng Smith
Rebecca Tseng Smith is the senior executive director of development for the University of California San Diego.
Previously, she served as vice president of development for the University of Hawai'i Foundation and associate dean for external relations at Stanford University's School of Education. Smith believes that the ideas of relational fundraising, as described by David R. Dunlop, provide the best principles to guide our practice, and she has had an opportunity to put these ideas to work at each of the universities she has served.
At Cornell University, she worked in the major and principal gift programs and later served as assistant dean for alumni affairs and development in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Cornell's $1 billion campaign for endowment was launched and completed during her years there and she participated in many different aspects of it, from developing strategies for the solicitations of lead givers and recruiting and motivating campaign volunteers to celebrating in the College of Agriculture when they completed the campaign at 45 percent over goal. In 1997, she joined the major gift program at Harvard University where she worked with alumni in New York City and Washington, D.C., and assisted with Harvard's campaign to raise $2.1 billion. At Stanford University she led the School of Education's participation in "The Stanford Challenge," which raised new funds directed toward solving complex problems, like K-12 school reform.
Smith served on the American Cancer Society's National Blue Ribbon Advisory Committee, which studied and advised the society on its fundraising practices and long-term goals. She is currently a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council of the Boston University School of Theology.
She earned a bachelor's degree in English literature and a master's degree in theology at Boston University. She spent her first undergraduate years at Eckerd College, a small liberal arts college in Florida.
Margaret Stutt
Margaret serves as the Director for Donor Stewardship at UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business. She serves on the Board of Directors and leads fundraising for The Stability Network, an international mental health advocacy nonprofit. She is also the Association of Donor Relations Professionals Research Committee Co-Chair. She earned her CFRE in 2021, and has received national recognition for her stewardship reports as well as the CASE District VII Rising Star award in 2020. She is also an Indie musician who has recorded 12 albums, toured nationally, and received press and media coverage including NPR national syndicates.