Chief Advancement Officer

Deborah Ryan joined the Becker Friedman Institute as its chief advancement officer in in July 2012. She is responsible for cultivating relationships that will ensure critical support necessary to advance groundbreaking research in economics.

She brings to the Institute more than 10 years of experience in collaborative fundraising, events programming, and relationship management, in both the higher education and corporate sector.

She comes to the University of Chicago from the New Jersey Health Foundation, where she was senior director of development. There she significantly increased foundation support by launching an annual fund and a grateful patient program and successfully raised funds for other strategic initiatives. Previously, she was director of development events at Princeton University, where she led a team that organized strategic fundraising events and was involved in campaign planning and programming. Prior to that, Deborah worked within the Development Offices of Princeton University; both in donor relations, where she led a team that organized strategic fundraising events, campaign planning and programming, and in University fundraising efforts.

She previously held positions at Jones Lang LaSalle and Goldman Sachs & Co.

Her undergraduate education is from the Cornell University of Hotel Administration. She holds a MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and is credentialed as a certified fundraising executive.