Bill is an experienced fundraising professional with 20 years’ experience gained at the LSE, University of Cambridge and now the University of London.

Bill established the first Development Office for the central University of London in 2015, building a team of more than 20, which has seen year-on-year increases in philanthropic income.
Prior to this, Bill was a senior member of the team at LSE that successfully closed the £100m ‘Campaign for LSE’ in 2008. He then moved to Cambridge in 2010, establishing the Development Office at Sidney Sussex College, during which time the University of Cambridge closed the UK’s first £1billion campaign, before returning to LSE in 2014 as interim Director of Development.  Before his career in advancement, Bill worked for Shell UK and as a consultant for GlaxoWellcome. 

Bill is an active mentor for many people in the education and charity sectors.  He has completed the London marathon three times, including running as a blue porcupine for Sidney Sussex College in 2012.

Tom Jirat heads the Operations team within the University of Manchester's Development Services function. His portfolio consists of data and information management; systems, including the alumni and supporter database, website and portal; reporting, visualisation and analytics; training and user support; compliance; and gift processing. Tom's career began in alumni relations and regular giving at the University of Salford before a move into Salford's newly created Advancement Services team, which he progressed to lead across all of its functions.

Becky has over 10 years' experience specialising in higher education communications, covering both alumni communications and fundraising. She designs and delivers communications strategies targeting a wide range of stakeholders, and has developed brands for two major fundraising campaigns. She works with senior managers and fundraisers to progress relationships through every stage of the alumni journey. She is passionate about creating opportunities for gradautes to be proud of their University, to create a closer connection and to excite them about how they can get involved.

Whilst studying History at Southampton, Richard was a student caller and caught the bug for fundraising. He began working for the University in 2015 as Development Officer and was involved in the successful £25 million campaign to build the Centre for Cancer Immunology at Southampton. In 2017, Richard was promoted to his current role of Development Manager, Major Gifts and Legacies. He is responsible for building relationships with key donors to Southampton, as well as leading the University’s first ever legacy programme.

Markus works in international alumni engagement which includes managing a network of 270+ volunteers running 60+ alumni groups across the world. London is also in his job description where he runs programmes aimed at specific alumni segments.

Markus enjoys designing and launching new initiatives to meet evolving strategic needs; most recently developing a ‘recent graduate’ programme in London, a global volunteer activism campaign and conferences for alumni volunteers in specific global regions.

Markus has worked for Manchester in various roles in and outside of alumni relations; including alumni communications and teaching and learning support.

Graeme is the founder of Lagotto Solutions, a company helping universities and schools across the globe to identify and better understand their most prominent and successful alumni. Since its founding in 2015, Lagotto has worked with over 200 organisations to widen and strengthen prospect pools. A set of novel search techniques he developed sit at the heart of Lagotto’s prospect identification work and he is widely regarded as a leading thinker and innovator in this area.

As well as being a prospect research expert Graeme is also a talented and experienced fundraising leader. He was a Partner at More Partnership for 2 years and worked with a broad range of clients during this time (e.g. University College London, London School of Economics, University of Bradford, Bocconi University, Royal Academy of Music). The main focus of his work was the training, development and mentorship of fundraisers, fundraising leaders and prospect researchers.

He also spent 9 years at the University of East Anglia (UEA), also his alma mater, where he established their first major gift programme. He also led UEA's first institutional fundraising effort, The Difference Campaign, which successfully raised £50 million. Under his leadership the campaign was extended and is on track to raise £100 million by 2020.

Prior to his appointment at UEA, Graeme worked in the charity sector as head of fundraising at The Papworth Trust, fundraising manager at Ormiston Children & Families Trust, and as a programme manager at The Prince's Trust.