As you will have learned through my previous letters, there are many changes afoot at the UO Lundquist College of Business. With this month's Inner Circle update, I am pleased to formally introduce you to Katie Rohrer, who will be joining us as senior director of development. Katie will serve as the new head of our Office of External Programs and be responsible for leading our fundraising strategy and development activities.

As you will discover when meeting Katie, she is a dynamic and forward-thinking individual who will be instrumental in helping the college achieve its future aspirations. She brings ten years of development and alumni relations experience from top tier universities and national nonprofits.

Most recently Katie was associate director for development at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she also managed the Stanford Business School Trust board, a group of distinguished alumni trustees who invest a portion of the school's endowment. Previously, she held major gifts fundraising positions at Yale University and at United Way of Metropolitan Chicago. Additionally, she served in various marketing and alumni relations positions at Northwestern University and the Aspen Institute. Katie earned her MBA in corporate strategy and finance from Cornell University's Johnson School and has a BS in environmental policy from the University of Michigan. Coming to the University of Oregon brings together three of Katie's passions--university fundraising, college football, and all things green.

Though Katie officially starts on June 15, I have already been working with her on strategic initiatives to streamline and improve efficiencies to better engage external stakeholders.

Key among these initiatives is the reorganization of the Lundquist College of Business advisory boards structure. The college's boards and councils are extremely important to the success of our mission. The members of these groups collectively represent a vast reservoir of expertise that provides great value to the college. Examples include mentoring students, speaking on campus, advising on the direction for our centers of excellence, and assisting with career planning and placement and internships for our students.

With this newsletter, I introduce a new streamlined advisory board structure for the Lundquist College:

• Board of Advisors (BOA). Comprising senior business leaders of national stature, the BOA is the principal group advising the dean in matters of strategy and future directions. It will continue to operate as a key asset in formulating strategies moving forward.
• International Advisory Board. As part of our expansion of global focus, we are actively formulating a new group that will serve as sounding board for ideas to better globalize our curriculum and facilitate international connections for students, programs, and faculty.
• Portland Advisory Board. We have made clear our intent to better engage the Portland business community and recently announced changes in store for our Oregon Executive MBA. This advisory board will facilitate our initiatives and involvement in Portland.

A set of smaller advisory groups formed around such key assets as our centers of excellence, career services, and accounting programs. Many of you have already become members of these groups within the college, while others have supported them by hosting or attending college events or agreeing to be a part of a speaker's bureau.

Our goal in all this is to work from a "demand driven," "bottom up," "points of connection" framework. We believe this new board structure will create an environment that is conducive for stakeholders to meaningfully connect with the college in more focused ways around their areas of interest.

I sincerely thank all of our past and present board members for their ongoing support and investments on behalf of the faculty, staff, and students. And I look forward to our continued engagement in new and exciting ways--especially now that Katie Rohrer is joining us.

Cordially,

Cornelis A. "Kees" de Kluyver, Dean
Rippey Distinguished Professor