Bentley University, a private, not-for-profit university, is a place for successful leaders who set out to create positive change in our communities, organizations and the world. Bentley believes in doing business and doing good at the same time.
By combining business education with arts and sciences, Bentley provides students with the critical thinking and practical skills to help them collaborate effectively, communicate clearly and lead successful, rewarding careers.
Bentley is more than just one of the nation’s top business schools. They are a community of leaders committed to making an impact that doesn’t just move business forward, but that moves us all forward. Bentley prepares students to be a force - a force for business and a force for good.
The Princeton Review ranks Bentley No. 1 in the nation for career services. For more than a decade, 97 to 99 percent of Bentley's graduates have been employed or enrolled in graduate school within six months of graduation. Bentley graduates don’t just land great jobs, they’re engaged in their careers and active contributors to society. It’s a well-rounded approach that delivers a dynamic career and fulfilling life.
Committed to First Generation Students:
Bentley University is committed to providing a transformative educational experience to all students, and is especially proud of its efforts to attract and retain students who are the first in their families to attain a degree in higher education. Bentley has a variety of programs specifically targeted to first-generation college students (which they define as students whose parents or guardians have not attained a bachelor’s degree at any college or university). Bentley knows that first-generation college students are ready to take on business and society’s most pressing challenges, and Bentley will give them the tools they need to succeed.
In 1917, Harry C. Bentley first convened a class of 30 students on Huntington Avenue in Boston, with a goal of educating the next generation of accountants. Since opening its doors over 100 years ago, Bentley University has continuously reinvented business education and grown from those humble beginnings to become one of the top business universities in the U.S.
As a transformative lifelong-learning community, Bentley University prepares over 5,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students each year to use their business know-how to make a positive difference in the world. With a community of over 65,000 proud Falcon alumni, the impacts of a Bentley education stretch around the globe.
Mission & Vision:
Bentley's Mission Statement:
Bentley University changes the world with a transformative business education, integrated with arts and sciences, that inspires and prepares ethical leaders who will confront the challenges of today and shape the opportunities of tomorrow.
Bentley's Vision:
As a preeminent business university, Bentley will be a knowledge-producing, engagement-based institution that develops learners for an innovation economy and empowers its community and stakeholders to address some of the world's most consequential challenges. We will achieve this by broadening our reach and impact, strengthening our programmatic portfolio, and creating a culture that becomes a beacon for inclusion and equity.
Diversity & Inclusion:
Valuing diversity is one of Bentley's greatest strengths and is a core value. The Office of Diversity & Inclusion is responsible for fostering an inclusive community by leveraging interactions between offices, educating the entire community and working to increase the diversity at all levels of the University. While the office coordinates university-wide, diversity-related programs and initiatives, many other departments, centers, offices, and organizations at Bentley contribute to improving the diversity climate through varied and persistent efforts.
Diversity is critical to Bentley University’s mission of educating creative, ethical, and socially responsible organizational leaders. Bentley's institutional values are rooted in a belief that appreciating diversity means that they work in an environment that embraces diversity of opinion and that is free from hostility and intolerance.
Bentley University - Leadership Spotlight
E. LaBrent Chrite, Ph.D. - President
E. LaBrent Chrite, Ph.D.
President
Brent Chrite is the ninth president of Bentley University where he led an ambitious effort to create a strategic plan to ensure the institution’s long-term vitality, health and impact in the disrupted higher education marketplace. Before Bentley, Chrite was the seventh president of Bethune-Cookman University, an iconic HBCU in Daytona Beach, Fla. Chrite and his team led the institution out of the most severe financial crises in its recent history. He also served as the dean of the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business as well as the Feliciano School of Business at Montclair State University.
Chrite also spent a combined 20 years in a variety of academic and senior leadership roles at the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management and the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. At Ross, Chrite led the school’s premier research and outreach entity, the William Davidson Institute, focusing on post-central command and transition markets. In that role, he expanded the breadth and impact of the institute’s geographic portfolio to include Latin America, Africa and Central Asia.
Chrite is an independent director at Gordon Food Service (GFS), an $18 billion enterprise and one of the largest privately held businesses in America. He chairs the board’s risk committee. Chrite is also an independent director at Algafeed Corporation, a revolutionary photobioreactor-technology company.
Chrite provides energetic and high-integrity leadership, and he is committed to individual and institutional capacity-building efforts to ensure that today’s workforce and their organizations are positioned to compete in the innovation economy. Throughout his career, he has committed himself to preparing students to successfully navigate the on-ramp to a global, connected and entrepreneurial economy. His focus has been on developing students’ adaptive capacities encompassing effective communications, self-reflection, narration and awareness, in addition to the requisite technical and computational fluency required for the 21st century marketplace.
Chrite has extensive experience developing the private sector in some of the world’s toughest and most opaque economic environments. Most recently, he led a three-year initiative in partnership with the U.S. Department of State to strengthen workforce development efforts across Afghanistan. He has pioneered fresh approaches to poverty alleviation and economic development across Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East. In parallel with his higher education work, he has led projects under the auspices of bilateral and multilateral agencies such as the World Bank, U.S. Department of State, Eurasia Foundation and Millennium Promise.
Chrite is a passionate teacher and thought leader. He has taught strategic management, leadership and international business to graduate business students and executives at the Ross School of Business, the Eller College of Management and in universities around the world. Chrite completed his undergraduate work at Michigan State University, his Master of Science at the University of Missouri-Columbia and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.
Jane Kim Donino - Executive Director, Advancement Communications and Donor Relations
Jane Kim Donino
Executive Director, Advancement Communications and Donor Relations
Jane brings extensive higher ed advancement communications experience and joined Bentley in early 2024 as the Executive Director of Advancement Communications and Donor Relations. She is passionate about the support of education and connecting people, specializing in communications strategy with a human-centric approach.
Prior to Bentley, she worked at Wesleyan University as the Director of Advancement Communications. Working with partners across the department and campus, she led a team focusing on integrated, comprehensive campaigns, incorporating strategic storytelling across channels to help increase engagement. Jane also played a key role in developing and executing “This is not a campaign. This is Wesleyan,” a $600 million capital campaign launched in the fall of 2023.
Jane was also in Advancement Communications at the University of Hartford and at Mount Holyoke College. At both institutions, she prioritized the use of technology to optimize communications efforts, creating data-informed multichannel communications and successfully expanded reach and engagement across platforms and mediums.
The Opportunity: Director of Advancement Communications
The Director of Advancement Communications manages and executes creative engagement and fundraising communications efforts for University Advancement. The Director oversees a team focused on strengthening alumni and donor relations at Bentley to increase pride in the community and support the university’s short- and long-term strategies. This position reports to the Executive Director of Advancement Communications and Donor Relations and will also serve as an additional liaison to Bentley’s Marketing and Communications partners to ensure that the messaging to external audiences of alumni, families and friends are compelling, engaging, and align with the University’s overall brand.
The Director will be a strong collaborator with colleagues in both University Advancement and Marketing and Communications. They will oversee and help create and execute on a comprehensive communications plan, utilizing communications as an important point of engagement across channels. They will also ensure that the ongoing communications strategy complements that of the university, adhering to brand guidelines, design specifications, and tone and voice standards set by Marketing and Communications, partnering closely with their designers and other team members.
The Role and Responsibilities
Essential Responsibilities:
Supports University Advancement’s goals by developing a comprehensive communications strategy across digital, print, and social media channels to achieve growth in community engagement and philanthropy.
Collaborates with University Advancement colleagues as a strategic, data-driven thought leader and innovative content creator for the development and execution of engagement and fundraising collateral including but not limited to fundraising campaigns, newsletters, stewardship, gift proposals, donor profiles, gift announcements, invitations, and brochures, for digital, print and multimedia content, to effectively reach alumni, families and donors through compelling storytelling and thoughtful outreach.
Leads and manages the Advancement Communications team to achieve department, team, and individual goals, creating and overseeing communications plans, procedures and the overall production schedule. Leverages additional resources available throughout Marketing and Communications.
Oversees and helps to manage the communications and engagement aspects of University Advancement’s technology and tools, working closely with Advancement Services, to ensure data integrity, optimal user experience, effective communications execution, and adherence to governance policies.
Stays up to date with current practices, social media trends, advancements in technology, and updates in data governance and analytics, seizing opportunities, using technology to its full potential and adapting as needed to achieve successful results.
Regularly reports out communications and engagement metrics to show progress towards University Advancement’s goals and makes recommendations.
Helps to represent the alumni and donor audience to Marketing and Communications for productions such as the Bentley Magazine.
Define the annual strategic plan and budget for the Advancement Communications team in collaboration with the Executive Director of Advancement Communications and Donor Relations.
Embrace and model Bentley’s positive culture principles, where all community members are empowered, engaged, and thriving in their work and studies. Develop a team culture that emphasizes gratitude, general reciprocity, best self, and the fundamental state of leadership.
Balance discipline – planning and measuring – with agility and handling the unexpected.
Qualifications and Expectations
Minimum Qualifications:
Bachelor’s degree plus a minimum of seven years of professional experience in communications, engagement, and advancement communications. Non-profit or higher education development experience preferred.
Minimum of three years managing others in a collaborative office setting.
Knowledge and understanding of data-informed comprehensive communications strategy for engagement and fundraising.
Has strong technical skills, knowledge, and experience in engagement, fundraising and communications technology and tools, as well as analytics tools including CRMs, CMSs, Google Analytics 4, Meta insights, and more.
Exceptional writing and editing skills and a strong understanding of visual concepts, particularly within digital communications; expertise in core communications principles, strategies and best practices, as well as the evolving communications landscape.
Creative self-starter with excellent organizational and planning skills to envision and innovate, oversee projects from concept to completion, and prioritize and pivot as needed.
Strong diplomatic skills are required as well as the ability to work with senior executives, campus partners and donors.
Ability to give guidance, pitch ideas, share and receive constructive feedback, integrate varying points of view, and adapt to evolving technologies, platforms and trends.
Ability to inspire others, foster cross-divisional collaboration and manage by influence across a diverse organization.
Excellent judgment and the ability to treat confidential information with discretion.
Must be available to work outside of office hours as needed, and staff major events for the university on occasional weeknights and weekends.
Work Environment:
Ability to travel within and outside of campus for work related events and meetings; travel may occur outside of normal business hours including evenings and weekends.
Typical office setting with extensive sitting and computer work.
Applications & Nominations
Bentley University has partnered with Boyden Executive Search. For more information about this opportunity or to submit a cover letter and resume, please email:
Lisa Vuona has decades of experience in executive search and human resource management, primarily in the non-profit, healthcare and education sectors. She is distinguished by her track record and network, and by her approach, which combines the strategic power of data with a finely tuned ability to understand the client’s organization and identify high-caliber leaders who fit the culture.
Jill Coran brings a broad foundation in human resources and executive search to our Boston team, enabling her to make valuable contributions to search assignments. She is adept at understanding client needs, researching and identifying high-level potential candidates, and shepherding the search process with integrity and professionalism. In searches for hard-to-fill roles, her tenacity is invaluable.
Don’t check off all the boxes or meet every single requirement? We have learned that potential candidates hesitate when applying for a job unless they meet every single requirement. Boyden Boston is dedicated to inclusivity and valuing diversity and equity in the workplace. If this opportunity excites you, but your background may not be a perfect match, we still encourage you to apply.
Bentley University - Director of Advancement Communications - Job Description (PDF Download)
