Boston, Massachusetts
Berkeley, California
Posted: 29-Sep-25
Location: Boston, Massachusetts
Employment Type:
Organization Type:
Additional Information:
Internal Number: JR4689
Job Description
**Please be advised all nominations, inquiries, and expressions of interest in this position must be sent to WITVPAdvancement@russellreynolds.com**
Wentworth Institute of Technology:
Wentworth Institute of Technology is a leading institution advancing the fields of the built environment, engineering, and applied technology. With deep expertise in architecture, design, and construction, along with strengths in engineering, computing, emerging technologies, and management, Wentworth offers interdisciplinary, experiential education that prepares students to lead in a rapidly evolving world. Through immersive learning and strong industry partnerships, the university delivers a high return on investment while empowering graduates to drive innovation and create meaningful societal impact today and into the future.
Founded in 1904 to “furnish education in the mechanical arts,” Wentworth has grown into one of the nation’s premier STEM and design universities. Nearly 3,900 undergraduate students and nearly 250 graduate students now pursue
degrees across five schools:
• Architecture and Design
• Computing and Data Science
• Engineering
• Management
• Sciences and Humanities
Wentworth’s academic pathways are designed for flexibility, ranging from accelerated three-year degrees to 3+1 and 4+1 bachelor’s/master’s programs, as well as part-time, hybrid, and online study.
The hallmark of a Wentworth education is its cooperative education program, one of the most comprehensive in the country. Every undergraduate completes two co-op semesters, applying classroom knowledge to real-world settings and
building professional networks before graduation. This model produces exceptional results: 91 percent of graduates are employed or in graduate school within six months, 97 percent work in their field or major, and the median starting salary is more than $72,000. 37 percent of the Class of 2023 were hired directly by their co-op employers.
Wentworth’s distinctive approach and commitment to student success have fueled growing national recognition. The university earned the top ranking in Massachusetts from The New York Times when measuring earnings, mobility, and diversity, was highlighted by the Carnegie Foundation as one of only five STEM institutions with “Higher Access, Higher Earnings,” and has been recognized in Forbes’ Top Colleges list. The School of Engineering has also seen steady gains in U.S. News & World Report rankings for both “Best Value Schools” and “Undergraduate Engineering Programs.”
Wentworth’s trajectory is guided by its 2025–2030 Strategic Plan, which sets forth a bold vision to make the university a national destination for STEM and design education. This vision builds on Wentworth’s longstanding tradition of applied, experiential learning while positioning the institution to prepare graduates who thrive in a technology-driven, globally connected economy.
The university’s financial and institutional strength supports this ambition. With an annual operating budget of $155 million, an endowment valued at $161 million, and more than $40 million in new philanthropic commitments secured in
FY25, Wentworth continues to attract strong external investment in its mission.
In 2024, Moody’s affirmed the institution’s credit rating of Baa1 with a stable outlook.
Located on a 31-acre campus in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood, Wentworth provides students with modern residence halls, a vibrant library and learning commons, and more than 60 specialized labs and studios. Design students benefit from an unmatched 1:1 student-to-studio ratio. In 2024, the university unveiled a 10-year Institutional Master Plan that will transform the physical campus with three new academic buildings, three new residence halls, and expanded green spaces. When completed, the plan will increase housing capacity from 2,200 to 3,900 students, while also adding a new athletics field house and doubling the campus’s green space to advance sustainability and resiliency.
Wentworth’s story is also defined by its enduring mission of access and innovation. From training servicemembers during World War I to becoming coeducational in 1972, to launching Accelerate, the university’s Innovation & Entrepreneurship Center in 2012, Wentworth has consistently adapted to meet the needs of students and society. Supported by philanthropy, programs such as the Accelerate Co-op for Entrepreneurs (ACE) give today’s students the opportunity to launch businesses during their co-ops.
Through its strong academic programs, nationally recognized co-op model, industry partnerships, and strategic investments, Wentworth Institute of Technology stands as a university of opportunity and innovation — preparing graduates who are not only ready to succeed in their fields but also to shape the world around them.
Executive Leadership:
Mark A. Thompson, Ph.D. became the fifth president of Wentworth Institute of Technology on June 1, 2019. His career in higher education spans more than three decades, including teaching and advising roles at Marshall University and Morehouse College and more than twenty years in senior leadership at Quinnipiac University, where he served as executive vice president and provost and helped establish both engineering and medical schools.
A scholar of urban and regional economics, Dr. Thompson earned a bachelor’s degree in economics-finance from Bentley University, an MBA from Western New England University, and a Ph.D. in economics from Georgia State University. His research has examined housing segregation, labor market discrimination, and the role of intellectual property rights in economic development.
At Wentworth, President Thompson has led with a spirit of “optimistic urgency,” guiding the university through a period of transformation and renewal. His accomplishments include:
• Building high-performing academic and administrative leadership teams and embedding inclusive excellence as a core institutional priority, including the creation of Wentworth’s first vice president for Inclusive Excellence.
• Expanding academic innovation by restructuring academic divisions and launching new programs such as
Applied Artificial Intelligence, Robotics Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, and graduate offerings in Mechanical Engineering.
• Enhancing student success and support through initiatives such as the Success Studio and expanded Center for Wellness, and strengthening high school-to-career pathways in partnership with Boston Public Schools.
• Securing transformational resources, including more than $40 million in commitments in FY25, as well as the $10 million Advancing Student Access and Potential (ASAP) scholarship campaign and significant external funding to
support labs, equipment, and scholarships.
• Setting a bold vision for the future through the 2025–2030 Strategic Plan, which positions Wentworth as a national destination for STEM and design education, grounded in applied, experiential learning and innovation.
Through these efforts, Dr. Thompson has positioned Wentworth as a national leader in applied, experiential education and as a university of opportunity whose graduates are in high demand for their skills, experience, and mindset.
The Role:
Wentworth is seeking a new Vice President for University Advancement to lead the development of a comprehensive campaign, provide robust leadership, secure major gifts, and oversee the annual fund as well as build out a planned giving program. The VP will report directly to Wentworth’s President. The VP will be highly influential in integrating fundraising throughout the university and will collaborate and partner with colleagues up and down the institution to achieve ambitious revenue goals in service to Wentworth’s mission. The VP will serve as a key member of the President’s cabinet by enriching team culture and creating and implementing overall strategy.
Through collaborative team performance, the VP will align major gifts and grants to effectively source and cultivate a heightened level of fundraising production aimed at mission-centric opportunities. The VP will work at multiple levels of the organization, with the cabinet, with Deans, with Board members, and the advancement team to support opportunities that drive substantial growth in identified areas of need aligned to institutional priorities and the campaign. The VP will work cross-functionally to drive the revenue and engagement goals of Wentworth, as well as develop and execute a unified fundraising plan. An excellent communicator, the VP will provide clarity to internal constituents on fundraising goals, progress, and opportunities. The VP will actively seek out partnerships across Wentworth leadership and subject matter experts to enhance donor and prospect cultivation, engagement, and stewardship.
The VP will have a best-practice mentality for the use of data to drive strategic and robust market and leadership-level donor engagement domestically and globally. The successful candidate will be extremely collaborative, goal-oriented, creative, mission-driven, and a team player who can unlock potential to achieve transformational results. The VP will be a visionary leader that harvests entrepreneurial thinking to accelerate philanthropic revenue generation, to steward existing and cultivate new corporate and industry partners and unlock new resources from a broader partner base. The VP will lead by example when deploying best practices for high-performing advancement teams, including staying proximate to Wentworth’s core business of serving students.
The VP will leverage several built-in strengths of the organization, including positive reputational awareness and a dedicated team. The VP and the advancement team will have the opportunity to steward and grow multidimensional relationships in collaboration with Wentworth colleagues, including cabinet members, Deans, and Board members. The VP will be a key team player who can help us enhance the connection with current and potential leadership-level donors, future board members, and add value throughout the organization.
Specific duties and responsibilities of the VP include:
Fundraising Strategy and Execution
• Deliver significant impact to Wentworth by building, driving, and stewarding the university’s first ever comprehensive campaign.
• Achieve an annual fundraising goal to support strategic initiatives and priorities.
• Secure significant philanthropic commitments in the six, seven, and eight figure levels. Align philanthropic investments with high-impact institutional and research opportunities.
• Support the President as a fundraising President. Collaborate with the Advancement Team to identify the moves management strategies that most effectively leverage the President to open doors, cultivate, solicit, and/or
steward top prospects. Coach the Advancement Team to utilize the VP in a similar manner.
• Collaborate with internal and external stakeholders to help cultivate, solicit, and steward current and planned gift donors. Utilize key talent within the institution, including prominent members of the Board, key supporters, and
faculty to help engage current donors and to diversify the breadth of prospective donors.
• Provide executive management over the strategies, performance orientation, and structure of the Advancement Team. This includes expert leadership over principal, major, and planned gifts, signature and board-level events,
donor relations, and campaigns. Create, monitor, and report on fundraising plan progress as well as budgets.
• Develop strategies, forecast, and budget resources that advance the overarching Wentworth plan.
• Build an innovative vision for using technology to engage current and prospective donors. Utilize data and analytics to inform new ways of working to support fundraising.
• Communicate compelling, clear department goals to key constituents to create and cultivate a culture of philanthropy throughout the institution.
Advancement Team Leadership
• Establish meaningful and measurable team and individual performance goals that underpin strategic objectives.
• Lead and develop three direct reports with a broader team of approximately 20 individuals. Collaborate with direct reports and their respective teams on market-and-program-based fundraising performance. Continue a culture of
celebration, mentorship, and real-time coaching.
• Lead by example, staying proximate to all the happenings on campus, visiting with faculty and staff and students to model intentional integration throughout the institution.
• Collaborate internally to ensure complementary teams (such as finance, marketing, communications, accounting, and IT) are aware of the market development/event business needs and workflow and vice versa.
• Recruit, train, and mentor the Advancement Team, maximizing opportunities for growth and continued success.
• Support efforts which ensure donors and prospects are informed of key organizational initiatives and individual donation impact through continuous and relationship-oriented communication.
Location and Compensation:
Please note that the VP of Advancement is an onsite role. The expected salary range for this position is between $325,000 - $350,000 annually which reflects what we reasonably expect to pay for this role. Wentworth is committed to pay transparency and equal pay for equal work. Wentworth carefully considers a range of compensation factors, including, but not limited to, prior experience, education, certification(s), license(s), skills and expertise, internal equity, and other factors consistent with job requirements and business needs. Please visit here to see the comprehensive benefits package offered to support the best experience for our employees. Employee Benefits | Insurance, Retirement & Vacation | Wentworth.
Candidate Profile:
Wentworth seeks an exceptional, results-oriented VP of University Advancement to build on the momentum of the organization’s current base of supporters to take the fundraising program to new levels of success. Wentworth is keen to consider candidates with experience in high-growth, fast-paced, mission-focused organizations, with specific functional experience in fundraising and business development.
The successful candidate will be an inclusive leader that is dynamic, creative, mission-oriented, and accomplished with excellent communication skills and the ability to work effectively and collaboratively with senior leadership to produce superior results. Characteristics associated with being intellectually curious, showing innate drive, and decisiveness are also positive. The candidate will possess proven leadership, strategic thinking abilities, strong management skills, demonstrated success in growing revenue, and the personal energy, enthusiasm, and collaboration to mentor others and rally a team to consistently surpass goals. This person will come with a track record of operating as a deeply collaborative and relational leader.
A hallmark of this executive’s success is fundraising evidenced by personal work with donors that resulted in substantial gifts that achieved organizational objectives. Experience managing a team in a complex, matrixed environment, leveraging best practices in campaigns as well as strategies, technology, systems, data and analytics that drive development work, including major gifts, planned gifts, and donor stewardship, will be a strength of this executive.
An ideal candidate will have a demonstrated passion for and commitment to Wentworth’s mission.
Inclusive Excellence at Wentworth
Inclusive Excellence is one of the four pillars of the Strategic Plan. Actively and intentionally cultivating a diverse and culturally competent institution where each member has the opportunity and support to reach their full potential and make contributions to our campus community and beyond is Inclusive Excellence at Wentworth.
To find out more about the Wentworth’s commitment to Inclusive Excellence, please visit the website https://wit.edu/about/inclusive-excellence.
All applicants have the right to accessibility support and accommodations. To request accessibility support or accommodations, contact the Executive Director of Equity and Compliance, Catlin Wells, at wellsc1@wit.edu.
E-Verify for Employment Eligibility Verification (Form I-9)
Wentworth participates in E-Verify. E-Verify is an internet-based system that compares information from your Form I-9 to records available to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Social Security Administration (SSA) to confirm that you are authorized to work in the United States.