Sir Damon Buffini
Sir Damon Buffini was a founding partner of Permira (www.permira.com) and was Chairman and Managing Partner from 1997-2010. Under his leadership Permira’s funds under management grew from €1.9 billion to over €20 billion and the firm’s number of offices rose from four to twelve. Permira was named European Private Equity Firm of the decade 1996 – 2006. He remained a partner at Permira until the end of 2015. Damon is a senior adviser to the firm.
In 2015 Damon was appointed Chair of the Royal National Theatre (www.nationaltheatre.org.uk) whose mission is to create world class theatre and make it available to everyone. In 2019, the "NT" had a global audience of over 7 million. As part of its mission the NT operates a national outreach program which includes delivering the National Theatre Collection to 50% of UK secondary schools - 3.5 million young people - for free.
Sue Cunningham
Sue Cunningham is president and CEO of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), which supports more than 3,600 schools, colleges and universities worldwide in developing their alumni relations, communications, fundraising and marketing operations in order to advance their institutions. As CASE president and CEO, she provides strategic and operational leadership for one of the largest associations of education-related institutions in the world with members in more than 80 countries. She became president of CASE in March, 2015.
Cunningham engaged CASE and thousands of its volunteers in a comprehensive strategic planning process resulting in Reimagining CASE: 2017- 2021, an ambitious and comprehensive framework for serving CASE’s members and championing education worldwide. This volunteer and member engagement extends into a comprehensive effort to refine CASE’s governance structure to more effectively support CASE’s global reach and service to members.
Angelique Grant
Angelique S.C. Grant is a senior consultant, vice president, and certified diversity recruiter with Aspen Leadership Group. In addition to executive search, Grant provides counsel in diversity, equity, and inclusion practices, fundraising, and nonprofit strategies. Her services include philanthropic strategic thought partnership, building and leading effective, diverse teams, recruitment and retention strategies, diversity audits and assessment, and cultural awareness trainings. She is a certified unconscious bias trainer and facilitator, has been an active speaker for countless industry associations over the years, and has chaired and served as faculty for several conferences across the country.
Jayne Hauxwell
As Founder and Director of The Quiet Consultancy, Jayne has a particular passion for cultivating effective partnerships between corporate organisations and charities.
Working across a number of areas as a strategic consultant, Jayne works closely with individuals on their philanthropic giving, with corporate organisations to establish, develop and grow corporate foundations as well as with charitable organisations to develop their strategy and donor relationships.
With over twenty years’ experience in the sector, she works with a number of high profile individuals and brands, including Sir Malcolm Walker and the Iceland Foods Charitable Foundation Board. Iceland were named Community Retailer of the Year 2018 at the prestigious Retail Week Awards for their ‘Dementia: let’s beat it’ campaign.
Jayne began her career establishing a manufacturing and retail business, winning a young entrepreneur award at the age of 21. After successfully selling the business she pursued her additional passion and moved into the charity sector.
Jayne is a Member of the CIOF and Fellow of the RSA
Matt Ingram
Matthew has recently taken the position of Advancement Officer, Cancer Research at Newcastle University.
He was previously Student and Young Alumni Officer, where he was responsible for fundraising with, for and from student and young alumni constituencies. He lead on the crowdfunding, community giving and Giving Day programmes at York, and regularly advised other UK higher education institutions on their programmes. In 2019, Matthew was the recipient of CASE Europe’s Iain More Award for emerging fundraising professionals.
Sara Kalim
Sara Kalim read Classics at Somerville from 1990-94. She then spent 14 years in the media, working as Head of Development for two major television production companies. Her work included developing access and ideas, and fundraising for documentaries and current affairs programming. Sara has most recently worked for the University of Oxford for three years at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Department of Politics and International Relations, where she held responsibility for financial and strategic planning, and played an instrumental role in securing journalism scholarships from a variety of funding sources.
As Director of Development, Sara oversees Somerville’s fundraising strategy and development, is responsible for fundraising campaigns (including for the Margaret Thatcher Scholarship Trust and the Oxford India Centre), and heads up the Development Team. She is also a member of the College’s Management Team.
Sara has a long-standing family connection to India, with family coming from Patna, Bihar. She also studied at Somerville making her the perfect advocate to drive the further development of the Centre. Sara’s focus is on fundraising and profile-raising working with philanthropists and corporate partners.
Kerry Law
Kerry Law is Chief Marketing and Engagement Officer, leading the External Relations Division at the University of Leicester. She is a member of the Executive Board, Senior Leadership Team (SLT) and the Professional Services Executive Group.
She is a highly accomplished senior marketing strategist and joined Leicester in January 2019 to help shape and deliver the future vision of the institution.
Most recently, Kerry was the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at the University of Nottingham, and brings to Leicester expertise from her 28-year career in marketing, of which she has spent 19 in Higher Education.
Formerly she has also occupied senior roles at De Montfort University, where she was the Director of External Relations for over 12 years, and FTSE100 company Pearson, where she led a team to launch and establish industry-focused degrees.
Georgina Lyons
Georgina began her advancement career in 2016, when she joined the Development and Alumni relations team at University of Bath, overseeing the donor experience for all major gifts to the university. Realising what she loved most about the role was building relationships with donors, in 2018 she became a Philanthropy Manager at the University of Bristol, working with alumni and friends to raise gifts to support student scholarships, research and capital projects.
Prior to finding her calling in development, Georgina held various roles at the Universities of Durham and Bath, working in areas as diverse as strategic planning, business process improvement and managing a doctoral training programme in Clinical Psychology. She also spent six years with national charity Breast Cancer Care, delivering and developing practical support and wellbeing services for people with breast cancer in partnership with the NHS, major high street retailers and other cancer charities.
Joanna Motion
Joanna's 40-year career in advancement includes eight years at the University of Melbourne where she launched the Alumni Association and then the Development Office. During a decade with CASE, as the inaugural Vice President International, she oversaw dynamic growth in advancement activity around the world, including the creation of CASE Asia-Pacific. The University of Kent and Loughborough University have awarded Joanna honorary doctorates in recognition of her championing of change encouraging philanthropy. Joanna joined the international fundraising consultancy, More Partnership, in 2011. Her More clients in the Asia-Pacific region include ANU, the Universities of Melbourne, Newcastle and Wollongong, Arts Centre Melbourne, UNIS Hanoi, and UWCSEA in Singapore.
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.
Miles Stevenson
Miles Stevenson has spent nearly 30 years working in Higher Education philanthropy. He started his career in 1993 at the University of Bristol’s Development Office organising its first ever telephone fundraising campaign and specialising in alumni relations, major gifts and legacy fundraising.
In 2002, he established the Development and Alumni Relations Office at the University of Sheffield. Over a period of 18 years, he grew the team from 6 to 45 staff, building the alumni relations programme and raising philanthropic funds across the entire organisation. Over £24 million was raised in his last three years. He was also responsible for the Events Team organising graduation ceremonies, public lectures and special events (such as H.M. The Queen’s visit in 2010). Miles was one of the University’s Public Orators for honorary graduates.
Miles was educated at the University of Durham where he took a Bachelor’s degree in History and a Master’s Degree in Medieval History specialising on the Crusades. He has spoken at fundraising conferences in Australia, Cyprus, Eire, Germany, Ghana, Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and South Africa. He chaired the CASE Europe Spring Institute for four years and was made a CASE Laureate in 2019.
Miles now undertakes consultancy work, focusing on philanthropy and alumni relations for the school and Higher Education sectors.