Lee is currently the Head of School at Nueva School in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has more than 30 years of school leadership and teaching experience in a wide variety of educational settings including five international schools (in Ethiopia, Brazil, Spain, and Belgium), an independent school in New York City, and a voluntary integration public magnet school in Minneapolis. Lee is a trainer for the Principals’ Training Center (PTC), has taught in the College of Education at the University of Minnesota, and is a guest speaker on contemporary educational issues at a wide variety of community events. He provides consulting services for schools and educational organizations around the world in the areas of governance, development and fundraising, learning innovation, and school-based continuous improvement.

Lee currently serves on the global board of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), and he is a former trustee of the Association for the Advancement of International Education (AAIE), the Global Issues Network (GIN), and the Sao Paulo Education Foundation (SPEF). 

Jan Abernathy is the Chief Communications Officer at The Browning School, a K-12 boys' school in New York City, and has presented at various independent school industry conferences sponsored by New York Association of Independent Schools, the National Association of Independent Schools, the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, New Jersey Association of Independent Schools, the Association of Delaware Valley Independent Schools, the Association of Independent Schools Admissions Professionals, the Enrollment Management Association, Niche, and VirCon. In addition to chairing the CASE-NAIS Conference in 2022 and co-chairing the NYSAIS Institutional Advancement Conference in 2022 and 2023, she is president of New York City Independent Schools Communications Professionals, and the co-founder of Black Advancement Networking Group, which works to gain further representation and greater professional growth of Black professionals in advancement roles in independent schools. She is also a member of the CASE Commission on Communications and Marketing, which advises that organization on those areas of the advancement profession.

She has written for NAIS’ Independent School Magazine on crisis communications, the "Black at" movement, Head/board chair communications, and diversity on boards of trustees, and for Center for Spiritual and Ethical Education's Connections Quarterly on building transformative alumni relationships. A Northwestern University graduate, Jan is currently a trustee at Grace Church School, and Tessa International School in Hoboken, NJ. She was on the board of Stevens Cooperative School, also in Hoboken, for 13 years, spending six years as chair. Her consulting firm, Jan Abernathy Strategic Communications, provides communications and DEI counsel for educational institutions and non-profits. Jan and her husband Jerome are parents of a daughter, Noe, and a son, Sam, both graduates of Stevens Cooperative School and the Dalton School.

Jeff Baynham brings over two decades of experience in higher education advancement and currently serves as the Associate Vice Chancellor for Advancement Services at North Carolina State University. In this role, he leads a dynamic team of 50 professionals across four core areas: Gifts and Records Management, Prospect Development, Donor Services, and Information and Technology.

Jeff has played a central role in advancing NC State’s fundraising operations, including support for the $2.1 billion Think and Do the Extraordinary campaign, which concluded in 2021. Most recently, he oversaw the university’s February 2025 CRM transition to Kindsight Ascend on Salesforce, modernizing its technology ecosystem to improve data management, strengthen engagement and fundraising efforts, and enable more data-driven decision-making.

A frequent presenter and active member of CASE and AASP, Jeff currently serves on the AASP Finance Committee and is on faculty for CASE Academy 2025. He previously served as faculty for the CASE Summer Institute in Advancement Services in 2021 and has contributed to product advisory committees for Kindsight, Ellucian, and Anthology.

Before joining NC State, Jeff was Assistant Vice President for Advancement Services at his alma mater, Western Kentucky University (WKU), where he led Gift and Bio Records, Prospect Development, and Donor Relations. He began his advancement career in leadership annual giving and alumni relations at WKU, following an earlier career in personal banking. Jeff holds a finance degree from WKU’s Gordon Ford College of Business. 

Nathalie Fontana has held executive management positions in nonprofit organizations for two decades, of which over 15 years as a specialist in higher education fundraising at prestigious institutions in Europe.

On October 1, Nathalie Fontana has re-joined the University of Oxford's Development Office as 'Associate Director Principal Gifts (Europe)'. In this role, she will establish the first Europe-based office by developing and expanding Oxford’s European major donor programmes.

Nathalie already worked for Oxford’s Development Office from 2013-2017, first as Head Development Student Support and then as Head Development Principal Gifts. Other stops in her career include leadership positions at the European School of Management and Technology (ESMT Berlin), Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich).

Nathalie has been a volunteer with CASE (Council of Advancement and Support in Education, case.org) for many years, is a board member of the Swiss-American Society (swiss-am.net), the Swiss Friends of Oxford University (oxfordfriends.ch) and a regular speaker at higher education advancement conferences worldwide.

Nathalie holds degrees in business, arts and nonprofit management, and fundraising.

Alex Furman is a highly experienced executive leader of philanthropic, engagement and business transformation programs. He was Vice-President for Advancement at the Australian National University from 2022-2026, overseeing a tripling of philanthropic income and a successful reimagining of university's Advancement program. Prior to ANU, he was Director of Development at the University of Melbourne for the decorated Believe Campaign that secured $1.16 billion. He has also held senior and executive roles as Head of Public Relations and Development for Murdoch Children's Research Institute, where he also led a capital campaign, and leadership positions in fundraising and management in the Australian arts sector for Opera Australia and Victorian Opera. Alex is a long-standing volunteer for CASE, having co-chaired the 2025 APAC conference, and continues to serve as a member of Faculty for the CASE Academy and CASE APIEF programs. He was made a CASE Laureate in 2025 for his volunteer service. He is also a Board member of the Mietta Foundation and a National Advisory Council member for Musica Viva Australia. 

Matthew is concurrently the chief executive officer of the William & Mary Foundation and the senior vice president for university advancement at William & Mary.  

He oversees the university’s team of nearly 200 staff including constituent and regional development; alumni engagement; campaign operations & principal gifts; lifetime philanthropic engagement & annual giving; university marketing & communications; events; and strategic advancement initiatives. He leads a team that strives to strengthen William & Mary’s community by identifying and qualifying new prospective donors, volunteers and connectors, and providing the meaningful philanthropic and engagement opportunities to ensure alumni, parents, and friends become consistent supporters of the university.  

As CEO of the W&M Foundation, he works with the Board of Trustees and dual-hat staff to ensure the Foundation's stewardship of nearly $1 billion in endowments for the benefit of William & Mary. He also oversees Foundation Services, LLC, which is responsible for the management and coordination of services supporting all of William & Mary's affiliated foundations.

Dr. Lambert and the leadership team successfully completed the historic For the Bold campaign in 2020, surpassing $1 billion, the highest alumni participation rate of any public university, and deeper ties among alumni and their alma mater. The All In Campaign for W&M Athletics was launched in March 2021, with a focused goal of $55 million by 2023.  

Prior to W&M, Matthew was the associate vice president for university development at Georgetown University. During his 11 years at Georgetown, Matthew held a variety of roles incorporating major gift and annual fund together with alumni and volunteer engagement. He worked with students, alumni and parents, including reunion-specific fundraising, alumni relations and principal gift management. He had direct oversight of development operations and staff for the university’s $1.5 billion campaign, including all the Main Campus academic units, Athletics and Mission & Ministry programs, as well as the Regional Advancement team. Matthew created the Student Discovery Initiative and was involved with every step of the program’s evolution, which is now recognized nationally as a model for alumni engagement.

Dr. Lambert is active in public policy research and teaches in the Education and Public Policy programs. He is the author of Privatization and the Public Good, published by Harvard Education Press and co-editor of Advancing Higher Education, published by Roman & Littlefield (September 2019).

Barbara Miles has worked as an advancement leader and teacher in five countries, and she is a dedicated supporter of CASE as an agent for advancing education worldwide.

Barbara was the inaugural Vice-President (Advancement) at the Australian National University, building teams, structures and processes to significantly elevate the university’s Advancement capabilities and establish a strong foundation for future achievement.

As Vice-President, Development and Alumni Engagement at the University of British Columbia, Barbara led what was, at the time, the most ambitious fundraising and alumni engagement campaign in Canadian history (2008-2015). The campaign raised $1.624 billion and engaged 130,000 alumni over the life of the campaign, exceeding both its targets on time and on budget.

Prior to joining UBC, Barbara was Associate Vice-President for Development and Campaign Co-Director at the University of Florida where she shared responsibility for planning and implementing UF's $1.5 billion campaign (2005-2012), was lead fundraiser for the Florida Philharmonic, New World Symphony (Miami) and the Florida Grand Opera, and was a high school teacher of Music and French in the UK and in the Bahamas.

Barbara was the District VIII Trustee on the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Board of Trustees (2015-2018). She also served on the CASE Global Governance Steering Committee and, in 2020, was awarded the John Lippincott Award for Global Advancement and Support of Education by CASE.

Barbara earned degrees in Music and Education at the University of Southampton, UK, and the University of London, Goldsmith's.

Carrie Phillips, Ed.D., APR is the Chief Communications and Marketing Officer at UA Little Rock. She is part creative, part analyst, and fully curious when it comes to solving higher education’s biggest challenges. With more than 15 years of experience, she has led efforts that have driven measurable results—from reversing a 13-year enrollment decline to launching a $250 million capital campaign and increasing national visibility through faculty storytelling. Her leadership centers on building brand and departmental culture, and her teams have earned national and global recognition.

A national thought-leader and speaker, she has worked with CASE, AMA, and Digital Collegium, and PRSA in support of higher education. She earned her doctorate from Texas Tech University, studying how universities can use marketing to mitigate the enrollment cliff, and continues to explore the intersection of leadership and higher ed at andcarrieon.com