Dear Bentley Community,
These past few months, I have shared important updates about leadership additions on campus that will help guide our community through new and exciting endeavors. Today, I am glad to announce one more important update to my cabinet. After a national search, Chris Grugan will be joining Bentley as our new vice president for University Advancement beginning November 2.
Chris joins our community in this important capacity from Harvard University, where he most recently served as the executive director of Principal Giving for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. In this role, he was responsible for restructuring and leading a newly created principal giving team which resulted in more than double the number of gifts over $5 million totaling $588 million in their first year. These impressive efforts accounted for the third largest annual fundraising total in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ history.
In addition to this role, Chris served as the senior executive director of Individual Giving, where he led a 90-person team responsible for securing gifts to support Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. In this position, he helped lead the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Development team to the successful close of its most recent comprehensive fundraising campaign. In the post-campaign period, Chris developed fundraising plans for a suite of key initiatives, including a $120 million fundraising initiative to support research and education in quantum science and engineering.
Prior to joining Harvard’s fundraising efforts, Chris advanced through leadership positions covering a wide array of advancement responsibilities at Boston University and Tufts. As the associate dean of Development and Alumni Relations at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, he built and led a team which successfully reached its campaign goal two and a half years ahead of schedule. Notably, while at Boston University, the business school secured what was at the time the largest gift in the university’s history — a $50 million donation resulting in the dedication of the Questrom School of Business. At Tufts, he spent over a decade in roles of increasing responsibility overseeing annual and major gifts, while playing a key role in athletics fundraising, for which Chris led efforts to secure philanthropic support for new athletic and recreation facilities.
As we look ahead to the many ways that our new strategic plan will impact our next decade and beyond, University Advancement will play a major role in diversifying our revenue streams and expanding our endowment. I look forward to Chris’ leadership in this space and his continuing work with Betsy Whipple, Ann Marie Regan, Janet Ehl and the entire University Advancement Division to ensure that our fundraising, alumni relations and career development efforts continue on the right track. I am excited to welcome Chris to our community in early November and know that he and our entire Advancement Division will help make Bentley an organization that we can continue to be proud of for years to come.
Most Sincerely,
President Chrite
