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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Founded in 1861 to accelerate the nation's industrial revolution, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private university organized into five schools (architecture and planning; engineering; humanities, arts, and social sciences; management; science) and one college (computing). MIT is an integral part of its host city of Cambridge, a diverse and vibrant community noted for its intellectual life, history, and thriving innovation climate. With a campus nestled between Central and Kendall Squares, and across the Charles River from Boston’s Back Bay, the Institute is optimally positioned to collaborate with its neighbors and to contribute to its community. The MIT community is driven by a shared purpose: to make a better world through education, research, and innovation.
MIT has placed second in U.S. News and World Report’s 2023-24 annual rankings of the nation’s best colleges and universities. As in past years, MIT’s engineering program continues to lead the list of undergraduate engineering programs at a doctoral institution. The Institute also placed first in five out of 10 engineering disciplines. U.S. News also placed MIT first in its evaluation of undergraduate computer science programs. The Institute placed first in four out of 10 computer science disciplines.
To read about MIT facts and statistics, click here.
Okay so, what if there wasn’t an MIT? From the ethernet to biogenetics – we depend on MIT and here’s why:
The Office of Resource Development serves MIT’s mission by strategically fostering lifelong relationships with alumni, friends, and organizations that result in goodwill and philanthropic engagement.
The Resource Development department staff works closely with the Alumni Association and a network of reunion and fundraising volunteers to generate private support for a broad range of purposes, including undergraduate scholarships, professorships, research, building construction and renovation, athletics, and the arts, among others.
The department takes special pride in their role supporting the MIT community, known worldwide for the application of science, technology, and scholarship to questions of global significance. MIT provides a rare and special setting where people and ideas combine and recombine to illuminate mysteries, make sparks fly, and foster intellectual breakthroughs.
In each of the last four years, gifts and commitments raised have exceeded target, providing over $500M annually to advance MIT’s current, capital, and endowed funding priorities. MIT’s last campaign, The MIT Campaign for a Better World, provided over $6.24b in funding to help the people of MIT tackle humanity’s urgent global challenges.
The Office of Resource Development consists of 12 teams and a number of strategic partners, which contribute to a variety of fundraising initiatives.
MIT Resource Development - Leadership Spotlights:
Julie A. Lucas
Vice President for Resource Development, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Julie A. Lucas has served as the vice president for resource development at MIT since 2014. She reports to the MIT president and directs the Institute's fundraising enterprise, securing resources to ensure MIT’s leadership in higher education. Her chief responsibility is establishing strategic direction for fundraising teams and the departments that support them. This includes identifying, cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding major, principal, leadership, and planned gifts to build philanthropic support for the Institute.
In the course of her work, Lucas collaborates closely with MIT senior leaders, deans, faculty, administrators, and volunteers. She serves on MIT’s Academic Council, Building Committee, Corporation Development Committee, Gift Policy Committee, Gift Acceptance Committee, Annual Giving Board, and Steering Committee for Community Giving. She maintains the highest standards for resource development teams, bolsters and strengthens the Institute's advancement community, and showcases MIT’s vision and impact—all in support of MIT’s mission to build a better world.
In 2016, Lucas spearheaded the public launch of the MIT Campaign for a Better World, an ambitious $5 billion fundraising initiative that amplified the Institute’s distinctive strengths in education, research, and innovation, and has advanced MIT’s work on some of the world’s biggest challenges. Under her leadership, the Institute elevated its fundraising aspirations to embrace the tremendous possibilities of the new MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing. In December 2018, MIT’s president announced that the Institute would increase the Campaign goal to $6 billion. In June 2021, MIT completed the Campaign and surpassed the goal, raising a total of $6.24 billion. Under her leadership, the Office of Resource Development has exceeded its annual fundraising target of $500 million for the past eight years.
Lucas has more than 25 years of experience as a development professional and currently serves as chair of CASE 50, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education group that includes the top 50 fundraising institutions in the world. She has held senior roles at various institutions prior to joining MIT, including University of Southern California, Fordham Law School, Hofstra University, and New York University (NYU) and its business and law schools. She earned a BA from McDaniel College, MS from Hofstra University, and advanced certification from NYU’s Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising.
Matthew K. Eynon
Associate Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Resource Development
Matthew Eynon serves as Associate Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for the Office of Resource Development at MIT and brings 30 years of advancement leadership experience to his role.
Eynon serves as the deputy to the vice president and is responsible for enhancing the internal organizational processes and infrastructure to allow RD to fulfill its mission for MIT. Working with the vice president and senior management team for RD, Eynon helps establish strategic direction for fundraising programs, direct short-term and long-range plans, develop budgets to support each unit’s goals, and ensure that performance is tracked and monitored. This includes leading and managing the organization’s day-to-day operating activities, building capacity to support future campaigns, and designing strategic planning.
Before MIT, Eynon served as vice president for College Advancement at Franklin & Marshall College. As member of that college’s senior staff, Eynon successfully led the most ambitious campaign in Franklin & Marshall’s history and expanded its advancement division. Prior to that, Eynon served as a member of the advancement senior leadership team at Boston College during its successful $1.6 billion campaign and in advancement leadership roles at Suffolk University, the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and two independent schools.
A graduate of Dickinson College, Eynon is an active leader for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). He has served as a member and chair of CASE’s Global Commission on Philanthropy, a member of the CASE Board of Trustees, and co-chair of the CASE Global Reporting Standards & Management Guidelines Working Group. He also served as a CASE District I Board Chair and District I/II Conference Co-Chair. Eynon received the Carol and Stephen Hebert Award for Distinguished Service from CASE District I.
The MIT Alumni Association (MITAA) is a crucial collaborator in building the MIT community that cultivates in all its members the ability and passion to work wisely, creatively, and effectively for the betterment of human kind. The Alumni Association provides services and resources that strengthen alumni and friend engagement to MIT and each other—across every stage of life—creating an infinite connection around the globe.
MITAA seeks to engage and inspire the MIT global community to make a better world. It serves as a platform to strengthen the ties of MIT’s 146,539 living alumni and its students and friends with the Institute and with one another, and offers opportunities for connection through various resources, programs, services, and channels.
In fiscal year 2023, 60% of living alumni engaged with MIT philanthropically, virtually or face to face. More than 15,000 alumni volunteered in service to the MIT community. MIT Annual Giving reported $84.2 million in gifts, and more than 35,000 alumni, students, and friends gave to MIT.
MIT Alumni Association - Leadership Spotlight:
Whitney T. Espich
Chief Executive Officer, MIT Alumni Association
As chief executive officer of the MIT Alumni Association (MITAA), Whitney T. Espich is charged with ensuring that the MITAA fulfills its longstanding mission to further the well-being of the Institute and its graduates by increasing the interest of members in the school and in each other.
Reporting to MIT President Sally Kornbluth, Espich collaborates with the Alumni Association’s president and board, and with President Kornbluth and Institute leadership, in positioning the association as the platform for MIT’s alumni engagement.
As the MITAA's most senior leader, Espich directs more than 100 staff tasked with connecting MIT’s alumni to its faculty, staff, and students, and with generating broad-based annual philanthropic support for the Institute.
Espich was named MITAA CEO in August 2017. Prior to this role, she served as executive director of communications, events, and donor relations in MIT's Resource Development group, where she played a significant role in launching the public phase of the MIT Campaign for a Better World.
Before joining MIT, Espich worked in Harvard University’s Central Alumni Affairs and Development Office, first as director of university development communications initiatives and then as senior director of strategic marketing and communications.
Earlier in her career, she held communications and management positions at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Citigate Cunningham, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation (Monticello), and Mary Baldwin College.
Espich serves on the board of the Council of Alumni Association Executives and sits on the Council for Advancement and Support of Education Commission on Alumni Relations.
Originally from Virginia, she holds a BA from Indiana University Bloomington, an MA from the University of Virginia, and an MPhil from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
General Responsibilities
The Executive Director (ED), leads the Human Resources (HR) & Strategic Talent Management (STM) team that services both the MIT Alumni Association (AA) and Resource Development (RD). The ED develops and manages the strategy for this shared services enterprise. The ED works with both senior teams to attract talented employees, ensure their strategic engagement and growth, and guide their ongoing performance.
The incumbent will be responsible for building a world-class talent capability to support AA/RD's strategic initiatives and priorities. The key priorities will be used to establish a strategic talent management program that represents best practices in the industry; identify and develop leaders; develop successor talent; and provide strategic direction in the processes and practices associated with the development and retention of AA/RD's talent at all levels. The ED oversees the design, delivery, and implementation of programs and resources that advance the commitment of MIT/RD/AA in belonging, diversity, equity, and inclusion. The ED is accountable for developing appropriate metrics to chart and monitor progress.
To explore this opportunity further, please send your resume in confidence to:
Lisa Vuona
Managing Partner, Boston
lvuona@boyden.com
LinkedIn
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.
Beth Parsons
Principal, Boston
bparsons@boyden.com
LinkedIn
Beth Parsons specializes in the education and non-profit sectors, having held fundraising and leadership roles in prominent educational and social impact organizations for nearly 20 years. She partners with clients to develop search strategies on the basis of organizational needs and core values. Her extensive advancement network serves as a source of high-impact talent.
Diane Turek Pire
Executive Search Partner, USA
dturekpire@boyden.com
LinkedIn
With decades of HR leadership experience, Diane Turek Pire is adept at aligning talent to strategy and culture in support of business goals and positioning human capital to achieve operational excellence. She has successfully built and managed high-performance global teams with a focus on engaging world-class talent, in addition to leading large-scale growth and transformation initiatives.
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.
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