Schools Conference - Be Inspired!

Speakers

CASE's Crystal Apple Teaching Award

Sunday night reception speaker

Sue Cunningham, Director of Development, The University of Oxford

Sue became Director of Development for the University of Oxford in May 2006, after five years at Christ Church where she ran a £30m campaign and established an Annual Fund. In her new role in the University, Sue is leading an expanding department in preparation for a substantial campaign in close collaboration with Oxford's Colleges. She has sixteen years of professional development experience. Her career has spanned both cultural and educational organisations and has included the setting up of the first fundraising department for the National Museums & Galleries of Wales and running the department of External Relations for the University of St Andrews. She has provided training for CASE Europe and for the Institute of Fundraising. Sue has experience of major gift fundraising and creating and running annual funds, family programmes and donor membership schemes.

 

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Opening plenary speaker
Caroline Goyder, Voice and Communication Coach, The Central School of Speech and Drama and Author of  Star Qualities

Caroline trains actors at the Central School of Speech and Drama, where she took her MA in Voice Studies in 2001. Caroline is also a trained actor, with a BA in English Literature from St John's College Oxford, skills which she was able to use in her time as Head of Drama at Rowan High School in London. Caroline now divides her time between Higher Education and freelance work as a voice and presentation coach in business. Clients include fundraisers, news anchors, politicians, barristers and advertising creative directors. Caroline is currently researching Character and Identity in an interdisciplinary study supervised by Dr Kelina Gotman of KCL Theatre faculty, and Dr Tamara Russell of The Institute of Psychiatry. Caroline's book "The Star Qualities" was published by Macmillan as a book for the lay reader in September, and has been featured widely in the press.

 

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Closing plenary speaker

Paul E. Sheff, President, Catholic Memorial School, MA, USA

Paul has been in education his entire professional life, which spans nearly 40 years. Early in his career he was involved in secondary education, first at Foxborough High School in Foxborough, Massachusetts, where he was a teacher, and then at Kimball Union Academy in Meriden, New Hampshire, where he was a teacher, coach, and dorm parent. Later at Kimball Union he became the director of admissions and after that the director of development, at which time he led the school through a successful $10 million comprehensive campaign. After 16 years in secondary education he left for higher education, first at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and later at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. At Dartmouth he helped the engineering school complete a successful $25 million campaign, and helped the undergraduate college complete a successful $568 million campaign. As vice president for development and alumni affairs at the College of the Holy Cross, he led a 45-member advancement team which, among its other accomplishments, completed a comprehensive campaign, Lift High the Cross, with a final achievement of $216 million. After 21 years in higher education, he returned to secondary education where, in July of 2008, he took over as president of Catholic Memorial School, an all-boys school, 750 students, grades 7-12, located in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.

Paul has addressed gatherings of the Association of Fund Raising Professionals (AFP), the Planned Giving Group of New England (PGGNE), the Jesuit Advancement Association (JAA), the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), and various United Way Groups. He was on the faculty of the first Asia Pacific Symposium on Institutional Advancement which was held in Hong Kong in November of 2000. He has a long history of involvement with CASE. He taught at and later chaired CASE's Summer Institutional in Educational Fund Raising. He is a former chair of CASE's commission on philanthropy, and chaired an ad-hoc committee charged with revising campaign reporting standards and guidelines. Currently he serves on CASE's board of trustees as chair-elect. He received CASE's Steuben Crystal Apple Award for outstanding teaching.

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Conference speakers

Tony Bretherton, Director of Development and CEO, Wells Cathedral School Foundation

Tony has led the fundraising efforts of two Universities (Waikato New Zealand and Limerick Ireland) and is now CEO of the Wells Cathedral School Foundation. Tony has also worked as a consultant and has raised funds in churches, social services and a hospital. A member of the CASE Commission on Philanthropy for three years, Tony is enjoying establishing philanthropic fundraising in a School that was 1,100 years old in 2009.

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Lady Kitty Chisholm

Kitty was the former Director of Development at Brunel University, UK (2003-2007). In the past, she was a member of the UK's Technology Foresight Leisure and Learning Panel and Director of Development at the Open University, where she established the OU's commercial on-line training division, Corous. Kitty was Chair of CASE Europe from 1998 to 2001 and one of the creators of the Knowledge Media Institute.

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Tim Edge, Development Director, King's College School, Wimbledon

Tim has been Development Director of Worth School, St Edward's Oxford and Charterhouse. He currently works at King's College School, Wimbledon, recently described by The Tatler as ‘The most exciting day school in London' and winner of the prestigious Sunday Times International Baccalaureate School of The Year Award 2009-2010.

 

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Lesley Humphreys, Marketing & Development Director, Millfield School, Somerset
Chair, CASE Europe Schools Conference

Prior to Lesley's current position she was Marketing Manager for one of the UK's Top 50 Law Firms as well as an associated Financial Services company. Lesley started her career in the City, working for an International Stockbroker. She then moved into the world of Publishing, working for Reed Elsevier UK, with special assignments in India, the USA and Europe.

 

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Barak Kassar, Principal and Creative Director, Rassak Experience

Rassak Experience is an award-winning digital communications firm with offices in Barcelona and San Francisco. Prior to founding Rassak, Barak founded INBOXTV, a pioneering online video entertainment company, was VP Marketing and Business Development for CHOW (acquired by CNET/CBS); and Senior Marketing Manager at Wink Communications (acquired by Liberty Media) and Marketing Manager at Ferris Research, an email technology research firm. Barak is quoted frequently in trade and international business media. He has presented at industry forums including the US National Association of Broadcasters, Digital Hollywood and SDForum. Barak holds an MBA from the University of California, Davis where he was an IMSEC exchange student at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus Universiteit. He has a BA from the University of Californa at Berkeley.

Read Barak's blog

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Carrie Levenson-Wahl, Director of External Affairs at The International School of Paris

As a former French teacher, Carrie brings many years of academic experience and a true joy of teaching to her work in Development. Currently the Director of External Affairs at The International School of Paris, she is using her vast experience in the field to build a culture of giving and asking at the school. Prior to Paris, she spent more than 20 years working in development at several independent schools in the United States, and has special expertise in annual funds, capital campaigns, major gifts, and start-up programs. Carrie is a frequent speaker and presenter for ECIS, NAIS, and CASE, and she was the chair of the 2001 CASE-NAIS conference in New York City. She was a former trustee of CASE-Europe, and now spends part of her time consulting in international schools around the world as a partner with MLW Consultants.

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Peter Mahoney, Online Services Manager, The American School in London

Peter is responsible for online communications at The American School in London. He has a bachelor's degree in communication studies, and is principally interested in strategising the use of emerging web technologies. In his home country of New Zealand he put this interest to use with SchoolWeb, the most popular website system for schools in that country. He also worked with schools, principals and Boards to facilitate the use of best practice throughout all their digital communications.

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Christopher Massi, Director of Development, Merchant Taylors' School, Middlesex 

Christopher has nearly 25 years of development experience including university annual funds and major gifts. He also served as Director of Development at Washington International School and Director of Development at Antwerp International School. Now happily settled in northwest London, Christopher is the Director of Development for Merchant Taylors' School which is in the quiet phase of a major campaign set to launch publicly in autumn 2011.

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Jane Narich, Director of External Relations, Benjamin Franklin International School, Barcelona

Coming from a very diverse international background, Jane's extensive development experience has covered three continents! Her marketing experience was acquired working with Edelman and also the Sara Lee Corporation in Chicago. Event organization has also been a large part of her portfolio, including heading up the organization of a Presidential visit to Latin America. Prior to joining BFIS, Jane was Admissions, Marketing and Development Director at ASP in Paris. Jane also sits on the ECIS Development Committee.

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Helen O'Donnell, Head of Development, University of Liverpool

Helen joined the University of Liverpool as Head of Development in September 2008. Before joining the University of Liverpool she spent four years as Development Director at Withington Girls' School, Manchester, where she established the first Development Office and went on to raise £1.5m for bursaries and prior to that she was Development Manager at Wolverhampton Grammar School.

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Tracy Playle, Director and Communications Consultant, Pickle Jar Communications

Tracy is a communications consultant with specialist expertise of social media communications. Having spent five years working in-house at the University of Warwick, including a stint as the Head of Research-TV, Tracy moved over to the dark side (consultancy) in 2007 and now works for a range of organisations in the education sector.

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Katherine Precht, Associate Vice President for Development, The American University in Cairo

After 17 years in institutional advancement at the American School in London, Katherine is heading up development at the American University in Cairo, which just completed a $125 million campaign to build a state-of-the-art campus in the desert east of Cairo. Identifying institutional priorities and articulating the case for support remain at the top of her agenda.

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Michaela Riches, Marketing and Development Director, Merchant Taylor's School

Michaela joined Merchant Taylors' School in 2006 after working as a Marketing Consultant for 3 years. She started her career at Sony working from the position of UK Product Manager through to European Central Product Development Manager. This was followed by six years with computer games giant, Electronic Arts, as their European Marketing Manager.

 

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Tori Roddy, Head of Alumni Relations, Westminster School, London

Tori has spent the last 12 years in the education sector, working in various alumni and development roles at a number of educational institutions, including St Hilda's College and Keble College in Oxford. She has experience of establishing annual and planned giving campaigns, and is currently managing an extremely active alumni programme at Westminster School in London.

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Michaela Seeger, Director of Development, ISZL

Michaela was CEO of WOLF-Garden, a European Gardening equipment manufacturer for 14 years. She was also a member of the Board of Zurich International School for 4 years and Co-Chair for the Capital Campaign. Michaela joined ISZL in February 2008 as Director of Development. She is responsible for creating the new school identity and for establishing the newly created Development Office. Her responsibilities include Communications, Marketing, Public Relations and Fundraising. She is also a member ECIS Advancement Committee Member

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Helen Tranter, Director of Development, Haileybury College, Hertford

Helen has worked in education for the last 17 years and joined Haileybury in 2007 from a London College where she worked in academic senior management. She has both an academic and business background and has taught economics and business management in both further and higher education. She has a degree in Economics and Business, a Post Graduate Certificate in Education and Training and is a member of the Institute of Leadership and Management. Helen has also worked in commercial business in the City and has expertise in finance and commercial partnerships. Helen now specialises in educational development and fundraising and leads the Development Campaign at Haileybury.

Helen has been involved in funding a new £2.2 million Modern Languages Centre at Haileybury which opens to pupils in January 2010. This capital campaign has been run alongside seeking additional funds for other smaller projects and also Scholarships and Bursaries. Raising more than £750,000 for the School over the last two years, Helen seeks support from a wide range of people in the Haileybury family which includes alumni, parents, friends of the School and also commercial sponsors.