N. Geoffrey Bartlett, PhD is the Assistant Vice President for Annual Giving and adjunct instructor in higher educational administration at the University at Buffalo. Geoff has nearly 25 years of fundraising experience in higher education and cultural organizations. His research interests include donor motivation, organizational culture and philanthropy in higher education. He has presented widely at both practitioner and academic conferences, including the RNL 2020.

Jenny Cooke Smith is the Senior Director of CASE Insights Solutions at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, CASE and specialises in analysing advancement trends, interpreting comparison benchmarks, and helping people understand the "stories behind the data". Prior to joining CASE, Smith spent 15 years in a variety of positions within Blackbaud’s Target Analytics, most recently leading donorCentrics™ benchmarking cohorts, providing opportunities for institutions and organisations globally to review and discuss direct marketing and annual giving trends. She joined CASE in 2019 to help members find value through using data and is most proud that through projects like CASE’s Alumni Engagement Metrics, institutions can begin to answer questions such as ‘we know engagement leads to giving, but how do we show it?’. Smith is currently co-teaching a course on CASE’s Global Reporting Standards and researching the latest trends on alumni engagement globally, enjoying opportunities to present again in-person, and working individually with CASE member institutions to develop strategies using CASE data and benchmarks.

“Mo,” as she is called by family, friends, and colleagues is the senior vice president for stakeholder engagement and chief of organizational operations (SVP-COO), with responsibility for driving operational and capital campaign strategy, overseeing key administrative functions, and guiding a culture of inclusivity for the UConn Foundation. Mo oversees the departments of alumni relations, marketing and communications, annual giving, stewardship, and board engagement.

Mo was recruited to join the UConn Alumni Association as the Executive Director and Assistant Vice President for alumni relations in 2014. Mo brought with her a national reputation for strong leadership built over two decades in higher education advancement. Mo is known for her ability to lead across departments while building collaborative relationships to enhance the experiences of staff, students, alumni, and friends.

Mo believes that mentorship and sponsorship of not only her staff and colleagues but also those from other institutions is incredibly important. She gives of her time and talent as much as she can and is currently an active member of the Case Board of Trustees. She has been on the faculty for the Case Minority Institute (MAI), Senior Alumni Relations Institute and was a member of the 2018 Case Summit planning committee.

Previously she was executive director of Bowling Green State University’s Alumni Association. Mo received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from BGSU.

Mo has more than 26 years of experience with higher education institutions in the university advancement field where she has developed exemplary leadership, created strategic plans, cultivated organizational change, and is known nationally as a leader in the industry.

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.

Benjamin R. Fiore-Walker, Ph.D. (He/Him) is originally from Southampton, PA in suburban Philadelphia. Ben received a Ph.D. in neuroscience (psychobiology) from the University of Virginia, and has a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Allegheny College in Meadville, PA. His research area of focus was in the development of brain circuitry as they relate to epilepsy and autism.

Ben comes to his position as the senior director for the Opportunity and Inclusion Center (OIC) after close to 25 years working in the diversity space. Before coming to CASE, Ben was the manager of the Office of Diversity Programs at the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Washington, DC, where he had a broad mandate to develop strategies to build out relationships and initiatives from across the society in order to help ACS live into its core value of diversity, equity, inclusion and respect.   Before ACS, he served as a senior managing director for diversity and inclusion at Teach for America (TFA), where he was responsible for devising and quantifying diversity metrics for TFA for the development of initiatives to diversity staff and corps member populations. Prior to TFA, he spent 19 years at the Georgetown University School of Medicine where he was the Associate Dean for Diversity & Inclusion. This work has taken Ben into many elementary and middle schools in underserved areas of the D.C. metro region, where he uses neuroscience to get kids excited about STEM fields and higher education.

Ben has written on and studied diversity climate in higher education and the workplace and is a firm believer that diversity & inclusion matters.  Ben believes that even though heterogeneity is the key ingredient to success—with diverse teams being more productive and creative than non-diverse teams, it’s all for not if the members of those diverse teams don’t feel their differences are celebrated or valued.  We need both, diversity and inclusion to reach our full potential.

Teresa (Terry) Flannery is Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. In this role, she directs the divisions of Education; Membership, Marketing and Communications; Data, Research and Technology; and Strategic Partnerships. Terry is a strategic, innovative, and collaborative higher education leader with more than 35 years of experience in a wide range of functions, including advancement, admissions and enrollment management, and student affairs. She has worked at large, medium, and small institutions, both public and private.

One of the leading university marketing professionals in the world and recognized in 2018 as “International Brand Master,” Flannery has led some of the most successful brand campaigns in all of higher education. She is also a consultant, speaker, and author of How to Market A University: Building Value in a Competitive Environment, a new book published by the Johns Hopkins University Press in their series for higher education. In cooperation with several leading higher education marketing agencies, Flannery launched an asynchronous master course based on the book.

Before coming to CASE, Flannery held the chief marketing officer role at three institutions, as Interim Vice President for Marketing and Communication at Stony Brook University, as Vice President of Communication at American University, and as Assistant Vice President at the University of Maryland.

Flannery maintains an appointment as a Policy Fellow at American University’s Center for University Excellence. She has been a fellow in the Academy for Innovative Higher Education Leadership and served for a decade on the CASE Board of Trustees, including as Chair.

Flannery holds a BA in English (American Literature) and a Master’s and Ph.D. in Education (College Student Personnel), all from the University of Maryland.

Sergio M. Gonzalez joined Brown University as Senior Vice President for Advancement in 2017. He oversees all advancement areas across the institution, including development, alumni relations, corporate and foundation relations, international advancement, the Brown Sports Foundation, and the Brown Annual Fund. He leads the $3 billion Brown Together campaign which exceeded its $3 billion goal early and is now aiming to raise $4 billion. Before coming to Brown, Gonzalez served as Senior Vice President for University Advancement and External Affairs at the University of Miami from 2001-2017. He was the architect and leader of two successful fundraising campaigns that together raised more than $3 billion. 

Prior to joining the University of Miami, Gonzalez served in multiple roles in Miami-Dade County government, including Chief of Staff for the Miami-Dade County Executive Mayor, Director of the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust, and Executive Director of the South Florida 1999 Super Bowl Host Committee. Gonzalez is chair of the Board of Trustees for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). He also chaired the CASE U.S./Canada Regional Council. Gonzalez also chaired an annual CASE conference for Latin American university presidents and advancement practitioners over a number of years, and speaks frequently on the advancement profession to diverse audiences in the US and abroad. Gonzalez has a long history of civic service both in Miami and since coming to Providence. He is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute and has served on the Board of Directors of UnidosUS, the largest national Hispanic advocacy and civil rights organization.

Other past board service includes Belen Jesuit Prep School in Miami, the Orange Bowl, Breakthrough Miami, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. In Providence, Gonzalez served on the board of the Trinity Repertory Theater and currently serves on the board of the Wheeler School.

Mary is Senior Vice President for University Advancement at the University of Washington, overseeing the marketing and communications, development, alumni and stakeholder engagement and advancement operations functions.

Mary’s career has been defined by a brand and mission-focused approach to building integrated strategy and structures for University Advancement — uniting the disciplines of communications and marketing, alumni relations and development to serve the University’s public mission and aspirations with the greatest possible impact. She serves on the University’s Race and Equity Steering Committee, and believes deeply in building shared equity leadership and in University Advancement’s role in building community internally and externally.

Prior to her appointment as Senior Vice President, Mary served as Vice President for Communications and Chief Marketing Officer for the University of Washington since 2013. Prior to joining the UW, she was the principal at Mary Gresch & Associates and served in communication capacities at Washington State University — including as the Associate Vice President for Strategic Communications and Marketing and Director of Foundation Communications. Prior to her tenure at WSU, Mary was the director of public relations and publications at the Cate School in Carpinteria, California, and a development coordinator for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

Mary has also been active in CASE for many years, and currently serves as chair of the national CASE Advisory Committee on the Value of Higher Education.

Rahaf Harfoush is a Strategist, Digital Anthropologist, and Best-Selling Author who focuses on the intersections of emerging technology, innovation, and digital culture. Her research centres on the human impacts of artificial intelligence, algorithms, social networks, and big data. Her latest book, entitled “Hustle & Float” (February 2019) reveals how the collision of disruptive technologies and centuries-old beliefs about work, is creating an untenable tension for workers in the idea economy, and what organizations need to do to help their creatives thrive.

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).

Jacob Mchangama is the founder and director of the Copenhagen based think tank Justitia. Jacob has written and commented extensively on free speech and human rights in international media outlets including the Economist, Washington Post, BBC, CBS News, NPR, CNN, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Wall Street Journal, Politico as well as academic and peer-reviewed journals. He is the producer and narrator of the podcast “Clear and Present” Danger: A History of Free Speech and the critically acclaimed book “Free Speech: A History From Socrates to Social Media” published by Basic Books in 2022. Jacob is an experienced public speaker and has given talks and participated in debates at numerous high-level conferences and fora including the Doha Forum, OSCE, European Parliament, Chatham House, Columbia University, NYU, Stanford, Syracuse University, The British Library, The Bilderberg Meeting, RightsCon, Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy, Brookings Institution, Web Summit, Oslo Freedom Forum and MozFest, and frequently appears on TV and Radio.

Jacob Mchangama reveals how the free exchange of ideas underlies all intellectual achievement and has enabled the advancement of both freedom and equality worldwide in his book, “Free Speech: A History From Socrates to Social Media.” Watch this video for a preview. 

Christine began her career as an admissions officer at Dartmouth College, where she focused on first-generation and student of color recruitment. After earning her Ed.M. in Administration, Planning and Social Policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), she transitioned to educational fundraising, working as a major gifts officer at The Madeira School in McLean, Virginia, and her secondary school alma mater, St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire. A Connecticut resident since 2002, she returned to higher education as the director of major gifts at her college alma mater, Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, where she oversaw the major gifts, planned giving and prospect research functions. In November of 2011, Christine became the vice president of institutional advancement at the University of Hartford, where she and her team grew the philanthropic and engagement program.

Christine loves working, once again, in an all-girls’ school as the chief advancement officer at Miss Porter’s School. Though a native of Cape Cod, most weekends you can find Christine and her husband Alex sitting in a very cold rink where they watch their goaltender son Arthur play hockey.

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.

Christina Sebastian is Senior Executive Director, Donor Relations and Broad-based Marketing at Columbia University, a position she has held since 2017. Her responsibilities include overseeing the Annual Fund Programs team, comprised of fourteen members, who are responsible for the direct marketing efforts across campuses, including Columbia’s graduate and undergraduate schools, and special projects, as well as the signature 24-hour fundraising event, Columbia Giving Day, which annually raises more than $20 million dollars and is in its 10th year. In addition, Christina leads the central Donor Relations and Stewardship team of nine, who are responsible for recognizing, engaging, soliciting, and stewarding University donors and prospects. 

Christina has more than 22 years of institutional advancement experience. She began her career as a student phonathon caller while completing her BA at Penn State. While earning her MBA, she started her professional advancement career at the University at Albany within its central Annual Fund and then at the School of Education as its director of development. Christina spent eight years at Albany Law School, moving from the Major Gifts team to become the director of Alumni Affairs, where she helped forge new relationships and collaborations between the Development and Alumni Affairs offices. Prior to joining Columbia, Christina was the director of Fordham University’s annual fund, where she implemented new initiatives including the Fordham Fund brand, student philanthropy committee, student giving, young alumni leadership giving levels, and a consistent giving society, recognizing those donors who have given to the University 20 years or more. 

Dr. Gia Bazil Soublet has 26 years of successful development and nonprofit experience and currently serves as the Vice President for Strategic Impact Investment Funding at the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), a major philanthropic initiative set to elevate the critical work of UNCF. In this role, she works with the Office of the President and oversees gift acquisition for UNCF’s strategic priorities, which includes prospect management and managing a team of senior fundraising professionals.

Before joining UNCF, Dr. Soublet served as Vice Chancellor for Institutional Advancement at North Carolina Central University (NCCU) where she increased fundraising by 125% in two years and doubled the alumni giving percentage. Prior to that, Dr. Soublet served as Vice President for Institutional Advancement at Xavier University of Louisiana. Under her leadership, the University enjoyed fundraising increases yearly and she is credited with establishing a corporate partners program, expanding the planned giving program, establishing a presidential funding initiative, and overhauling the stewardship operation, resulting in significant growth in donor retention. Prior to Xavier, she served as Director for Corporate and Foundation Relations at Dillard University, where she started her career in higher education as a Major Gifts Officer. Prior to Dillard she worked in several roles at United Way for the Greater New Orleans Area before eventually serving as the Assistant Vice President for Campaigns. During her tenure at United Way, Dr. Soublet won numerous national participation and goal achievement awards as the director for the Combined Federal Campaign.  

Dr. Soublet holds a Doctorate in Urban Higher Education Administration from Jackson State University, a Master of Business Management from the University of Phoenix, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Information Systems from Xavier University of Louisiana. Additionally, Dr. Soublet earned Certification in Fund Raising Management from Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. Nationally recognized for her success in fundraising and nonprofit management, she has presented for the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), Association for Fundraising Professionals (AFP), and United Way conferences on various topics including major gift acquisition, grant writing, donor participation, board development, diversity and inclusion, and ethics in fundraising. She served on the Board for the New Orleans AFP chapter from 2020 to 2022.  

Dr. Soublet is also the principal for Soublet Consulting Group (SCG). SCG has worked with universities and nonprofits locally and regionally to achieve their organizational objectives and it is committed to helping nonprofits of all sizes plan for self-sustainability. Services include board training and development, strategic planning, program audits, development operation audits, fundraising strategies and plans, capital campaign readiness and planning, and ethics and diversity training.

The vice president for institute advancement is responsible for oversight of the division of advancement, including strategy, services, and infrastructure; alumni relations, engagement and communications; and development, focusing on, individual, corporate, foundation, and international advancement initiatives through philanthropic support of the Institute.

Matthew J. Ter Molen has more than 30 years of expertise in development and fundraising. Most recently, he was the Chief Advancement Officer and Senior Vice President at Syracuse University, where he served for more than eight years. In this role, he oversaw all alumni relations and development activities, including the planning, launch, and execution of the $1.5 billion University-wide campaign "Forever Orange," which raised more in private philanthropy than at any other time in Syracuse University history. Prior to Syracuse, Ter Molen held a range of positions at Northwestern University, the most recent being the Associate Vice President and Campaign Manager. Ter Molen's career began at the University at Chicago in their annual giving office.

Ter Molen holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science from Miami University in Ohio, and served in the Peace Corps in Honduras for two years prior to the start of his career in fundraising.

Alison joined the University of Cambridge in 2013 as executive director, development and alumni relations. She is responsible for carrying forward the University’s philanthropic agenda, which includes leading the £2billion fundraising Campaign for the University and Colleges of Cambridge as well as expanding and enhancing alumni relations. In 2019, Alison led the team and secured the largest single gift to a UK organisation by a UK national, a £100m gift from the Claudia and David Harding Foundation.

Alison has worked in higher education advancement for 30 years, previously holding senior roles in the USA.  Alison led a $3bn campaign for the University of Virginia where she was associate vice-president for development.  Prior to this she completed a $25m six-year campaign two years ahead of schedule as director of development for the Brady Urological Institute at Johns Hopkins University, where she oversaw an increase in giving from $1m to $11m annually. 

Alison began her relationship with CASE as a CASE Student Scholar at the 1987 District I Conference, has subsequently spoken at a number of CASE conferences, and served on the CASE 50 Steering Committee.  In addition she has been serving on the faculty of the Big Ten Fundraiser Institute since 2018.