Martin W. Shell is vice president and chief external relations officer at Stanford University. Reporting directly to its president, he leads Stanford's offices of Public Affairs, University Communications, Special Events and Protocol, Office of Development and the newly formed Office for Community Engagement. In this position, he aligns the work of Stanford's externally facing teams to design, implement and maintain strategies for service and engagement regionally, nationally and globally, including collaboration with local partners to address sustainability, affordability and other challenges specific to Silicon Valley and the Bay Area.

Prior to this position, Shell served as vice president for development at Stanford for 13 years, setting the development agenda, establishing goals and overseeing the fundraising operations across the university. Before becoming vice president in April 2005, he served for two years as associate vice president for development. While associate vice president, he had oversight responsibility for major portions of the university development program, including a number of the school and unit development offices.

He also served as the executive vice chair and lead staff member to "The Stanford Challenge," the university's $4.3 billion fundraising effort launched in October 2006. "The Stanford Challenge" ended in December 2011, securing $6.2 billion in gifts and pledges from nearly 167,000 households—at the time it represented the largest overall dollar amount ever raised in a five-year public campaign period by an institution of higher education. During his 13-plus years as vice president for development, Stanford University has raised more than $12.5 billion in cash or cash equivalents according to figures compiled by the Council for Aid to Education.

Shell joined Stanford in 1998 to become senior associate dean for external relations and later was appointed chief operating officer at Stanford Law School. Prior to his move to Stanford, he was associate dean for development and alumni relations at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

For 10 years, he was a member of the Development Committee of the American Bar Association's Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar and served as the committee co-chair from 2001-2003. In 2003 he co-chaired the Section's Jackson Hole Conference for Law School Deans and Development Officers. He currently serves as a trustee of Hendrix College, and is a former CASE Trustee. He has served as a trustee of the Castilleja School in Palo Alto and the Oakland-based NGO, Coaching Corps. He also holds the CASE Crystal Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Shell has been an advancement officer for more than 30 years serving institutions of higher education in Arkansas, Pennsylvania and California. In addition to this work, he also was an executive with a public utility company, a press secretary to a U.S. representative and a newspaper reporter.