Speakers
Mark Dollhopf
Mark R. Dollhopf is Executive Director Emeritus of the Association of Yale Alumni (AYA), and is the current President of Dollhopf & Associates, counseling universities in strategic planning, alumni engagement, and fundraising.
Mr. Dollhopf was responsible for the alumni relations efforts of Yale University including the support and sponsorship of 75 Yale College Classes, 187 Yale Clubs and regional alumni associations, 13 graduate and professional schools, and more than 150 affinity groups representing ethnic, religious, gender, cultural, vocational, and service alumni networks.
Under his leadership alumni participation at Yale tripled, accomplished through innovative strategic planning, creative programming, and leadership training. The AYA annually identifies, cultivates, and engages more than 7,000 volunteer leaders who manage reunions, educational programs, conferences, cultural affairs, community service, and travel programs for Yale’s 200,000 alumni.
Prior to his appointment as Executive Director, he was a university volunteer. Yale awarded Mr. Dollhopf The Yale Tercentennial and The Yale School of Music Tercentennial Medals in 2001, and The Yale Medal in 2004, the highest honor bestowed by Yale for volunteer service.
Ross Munnelly
Ross Munnelly was appointed the first Director of Alumni Relations at Dublin City University in July 2017. Over a 16 year period, Ross has worked in a number of roles at the university including Student Recruitment, the Careers Service and Head of Sports Development. He now manages the domestic and international engagement programme for over 84,000 Alumni worldwide.
He is a four time graduate of DCU, some of his qualifications include an MSc in Education and Training (e-Learning), Graduate Diploma in Guidance and Counselling and most recently the Executive MBA.
Under his leadership, the Alumni Office won the prestigious IITD National Training Award for Excellence in Mentorship for the DCU Structured Mentorship Programme with the Careers Service team.
In addition to his role leading the Alumni Service at DCU, Ross served the university as Acting Joint Head of Student Recruitment at DCU from mid 2020 to early 2022.
Michael Omoniyi
Micheal Timilehin Omoniyi is an innovative, bold, dedicated leader and thinker. He is a serial entrepreneur and builder.
In 2018, he was recognised by the Financial Times as one of the 100 most influential leaders in Tech in the UK as the Founder and CEO of The Common Sense Network, a UK Based News Network for and by millennials. He is the Founder and Director of Our God Given Mission, a missions based charity. He is also the founder of The Apex Group, a closed group for CEO’s and Founders where they share best practice. As well as founding several initiatives and organisations, Micheal consults for various charities and organisations.
Erin Hallett
As Head of Alumni Relations for Imperial College Business School, Erin leads the Alumni Relations team and is responsible for developing and overseeing the School’s alumni relations strategy both in the UK and internationally. She works closely with the College’s Advancement team to develop lifelong, reciprocal relationships with alumni that support Imperial’s academic mission and help build its global reputation.
Erin is originally from Canada and moved to London in 2015.
Stephanie Baxter
Stephanie is an experienced volunteer and relationship manager, having worked in Alumni Relations and Volunteering & Advocacy for over 8 years. In her current role, she engages with alumni to promote the Faculty of Engineering's strategic aims, including supporting the faculty's student experience, teaching and learning, as well as research and reputation. Stephanie leads a range of alumni-to-student initiatives, such as organising student lunches with leaders of industry and running the "Inspiring Women in Engineering" outreach programme to increase female participation in the field.
Passionate about equality, diversity, and inclusion, Stephanie has recently launched the Black Industry Connections and Empowerment Programme (BICEP), a university-wide pilot scheme aimed at reducing the black-white awarding gap. With a wealth of experience in supporter engagement, Stephanie is dedicated to developing strong, mutually beneficial relationships with volunteers to contribute to the future success of the University of Nottingham.
Kate Bauer
Kate is the International Alumni Coordinator for the King’s College London Alumni Office. She graduated from King’s College London and Shakespeare’s Globe with an MA in Shakespeare Studies.
During her undergraduate degree she mentored for Bridge21, an education programme based in Trinity College Dublin, and represented the programme at various events including the EUROSOLE (Erasmus+) Facilitator Workshops in Newcastle University.
Since joining the Alumni team at King’s College London, Kate has supported with the delivery of alumni engagement trips and initiatives, and assisted with the migration to the new Graduway website for their online mentoring platform King’s Connect. Kate currently manages the Alumni Ambassador Programme, which selects alumni to act as a King’s representative within their home country and aid with student recruitment.
Eilidh Campbell
Eilidh is Alumni Engagement Officer at Imperial College London, managing Imperial’s alumni groups and associations around the world. She has been working in alumni relations for six years in various roles, starting out as the team administrator at her alma mater, the University of Edinburgh. She moved to London in 2015 for a role in the alumni team at Goldsmiths College, moving to Imperial in 2017.
Rachael Green
Rachael Green has been working in the sector for over 10 years, working her way from a student caller at the University of Birmingham to International Alumni Relations and Acting Alumni Giving Manager at the University of Exeter. Since 2014 Rachael has established the first volunteering programme at Nottingham as part of the Impact Campaign, and is now just about to expand the team working on volunteering and advocacy to a more Faculty aligned model, allowing further support of the student experience. Since 2014 Nottingham have worked with over 3000 volunteers in a range of roles to support the student experience and research, implementing a volunteer stewardship and recognition programme.
Tom Fern
Tom Fern is Senior Communications Officer in The University of Manchester’s alumni relations team, where he is responsible for managing communications to almost 500,000 former students in over 190 countries across digital and print. His main areas of interest are email marketing, content design and behavioural change. Before joining Manchester in 2016, Tom spent 8 years managing online communications in secondary education and football.
Hayley-Jane Sims
Hayley-Jane Sims is a communications specialist who plays a key role in delivering The University of Manchester’s multi-award winning alumni volunteering programmes, including leading on innovative stewardship programmes for alumni who give their time to the University. She is also host of the new Your Manchester Stories podcast, which celebrates the lives and the achievements of the University’s graduates. As well as working at the University, Hayley-Jane has been a broadcast assistant at the BBC and a storyliner on Hollyoaks.
Nik Miller
Nik is Lead Partner at More Partnership, and works with organisations around the world to advance their ambitions through alumni and corporate engagement, and wider fundraising programmes. This has recently included universities (e.g. Trinity College Dublin, University of Oxford and University of Pretoria), charities (e.g. the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund and the New Zealand Link Foundation) and large employers (e.g. KPMG, Linklaters and the BBC). He has also worked with a range of scientific institutes, including IRB and CRG in Barcelona, and the Wellcome Trust; and has been an advisor to EMBL Alumni Relations since 2015.
Nik has a keen interest in social equality, and is Chief Executive of the Bridge Group, based at King’s College London - the charity advises government and a wide range of international organisations. He is also a trustee of the UNITE Foundation (which is disbursing over £9m to support care leavers to enter higher education)) and a Research Associate and Fellow at the University of York. Nik was awarded the CASE Crystal Apple award for teaching excellence in 2020.
Ria Flom
Ria joined the University College Dublin team in 2018 and is responsible for the exponential growth of the UCD Alumni Volunteering programme. She also leads new alumni engagement and supports a busy calendar of pan-University events. To this, her first role in third level education, she brings a proven ability to influence and collaborate across diverse audiences, listening to the complex requirements of various stakeholders to ensure success and a result that addresses needs and exceeds expectations.
Ria is a dynamic, curious, and personable problem-solver, facilitator and networker working with volunteers, teams and senior leaders across the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors. She is a dual citizen of the USA and Ireland, originally from Minnesota.
Jennie Blake
Jennie Blake is Associate Director for Alumni Relations and oversees the Alumni Volunteering programme. Having introduced the programme with the first mentoring programme in 2015, she is passionate about the impact of alumni volunteering on students, the University and the alumni community. She also leads alumni engagement with two Colleges in UCD and drives the corporate sponsorship strategy for major alumni events.
Having worked in the charity sector, and as Head of Development in Volunteer Ireland, she developed a real grá (Irish for passion!) for all things volunteering. Jennie has 20 years experience engaging with multiple stakeholders across the charity, private and education sectors.
Dr Maria Gallo
Dr Maria Gallo has over 20 years as a scholar, and higher education professional in strategic planning, alumni relations and development. Maria is the former Director of Lifelong Learning and Engagement at St Angela’s College, Sligo and is currently a Research Fellow with the Community Knowledge Initiative at the Institute for Lifecourse and Society at NUI Galway. As the Founder of the social enterprise KITE- Keep in Touch Education, Maria undertakes research, consultancy and education projects to promote alumni connections in life for life and fostering active global alumni citizens. Along with her TEDx talk on alumni, Maria is a regular speaker at education and philanthropy conferences worldwide. Maria completed her doctoral studies in alumni relationships at the University of Sheffield and her undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto. As Chair of the Sligo Volunteer Centre, she led the successful bid for European Volunteering Capital for Sligo in 2017. She has several academic publications on alumni relations and remains actively involved in all five of her alma maters in Canada, Ireland and the UK.