Required Qualifications
BA/BS degree and at least 10 years of progressively responsible experience in external engagement, corporate or organizational partnerships, alumni relations, advancement, executive education, business development, public affairs, higher education administration, or a related field.
Demonstrated success leading teams, building new functions or programs, and managing complex initiatives in a matrixed organization.
Proven ability to build trust and credibility with senior external stakeholders, including executives, alumni leaders, corporate partners, civic leaders, community partners, or equivalent audiences.
Strong strategic judgment, business literacy, and ability to translate institutional priorities into compelling opportunities for external partners.
Demonstrated ability to work across internal boundaries, influence without relying solely on formal authority, and build productive relationships with faculty, staff, senior leaders, and external partners.
Excellent written, oral, presentation, and interpersonal communication skills.
Strong record of sound judgment, discretion, confidentiality, and integrity.
Demonstrated commitment to building an environment of belonging and engagement among team members.
Preferred Qualifications
Advanced degree in business, higher education, public administration, organizational leadership, or a related field.
Experience in a business school, university, foundation, corporate partnership, executive education, civic, nonprofit, or complex professional-services environment.
Experience working with corporate and organizational partners in ways that extend beyond philanthropy, including talent, learning, research, advisory, sponsorship, or community partnerships.
Familiarity with alumni engagement, annual giving, stewardship, advisory boards, corporate relations, or advancement operations.
Experience working with faculty or academic leaders in a higher education setting.
Experience using data, CRM systems, or relationship intelligence tools to support strategy, coordination, and partner experience.
Demonstrated ability to build scalable systems while preserving high-trust relationships.
Assistant Dean for External Engagement
Carlson School of Management
University of Minnesota
Position Overview
The inaugural Assistant Dean for External Engagement will serve as the senior leader responsible for advancing the Carlson School’s strategy for external engagement, including alumni engagement, annual giving, corporate and organizational partnerships, advisory board engagement, relationship intelligence, and coordination with the University of Minnesota Foundation.
The Carlson School has deep external relationships across academic departments, centers and institutes, programs, alumni, employers, advisory boards, corporate partners, community organizations, and the broader business ecosystem. Many of these relationships are strong and trusted, but they do not always operate as a coordinated school-wide asset. The Assistant Dean will lead the work of making Carlson’s distributed external engagement more visible, navigable, reciprocal, and strategically valuable while respecting the local ownership and expertise that make many of these relationships successful.
The Assistant Dean will report directly to the Dean and will lead the External Engagement organization. The role will provide strategic leadership for existing functions in Alumni Relations and Annual Giving and Operations, while building a lean Strategic Partnerships capability anchored initially by corporate and organizational partnerships and board relations.
The role is not intended to centralize ownership of all external relationships. Rather, it is intended to amplify Carlson’s existing external relationships and create the connective capacity needed to advance school-level outcomes.
The strategic aim for external engagement is to create a distinctive professional and intellectual advantage for students by grounding experiential learning and external partnerships in rigorous insight, alumni commitment, and reciprocal relationships that generate value no single unit could create alone.
Key Responsibilities
1. External Engagement Strategy and Organizational Leadership — 35%
Serve as the senior leader responsible for Carlson’s school-wide external engagement strategy, ensuring alignment with the school’s strategic plan, mission, values, and priorities.
Advise the Dean and senior leadership on external engagement strategy, partner prioritization, alumni engagement, annual giving, corporate and organizational partnerships, advisory board engagement, and the Carlson–UMF interface.
Lead the External Engagement organization as an integrated whole, ensuring that existing functions and new capabilities advance shared school-level outcomes rather than operating as disconnected activities.
Provide strategic direction and accountability for Alumni Relations and Annual Giving, with attention to scalable alumni engagement, corporate alumni chapters, regional alumni engagement, mentoring, lifelong learning, alumni leadership pipelines, and protection of annual giving as an important source of unrestricted support.
Provide strategic oversight for External Engagement Operations, including fund utilization, gift stewardship infrastructure, benefactor relations support, external engagement communications support, development support, and coordination with UMF.
Partner closely with the Operations leader to manage the working relationship between Carlson and UMF, including shared accountability agreements, data-sharing practices, operating protocols, and stewardship responsibilities.
Establish priorities, operating principles, and resource tradeoffs for the External Engagement organization, ensuring that existing leaders have clarity about strategy, expectations, and decision rights.
Represent Carlson with senior alumni, corporate executives, civic leaders, community partners, board members, and University partners as needed.
2. Build and Lead the Strategic Partnerships Capability — 40%
Build a lean, dedicated Strategic Partnerships capability in its first phase, initially anchored by corporate and organizational partnerships and board relations.
Develop a school-level strategic partner portfolio, including criteria for identifying which corporate, organizational, alumni, community, and advisory board relationships warrant deeper institutional coordination.
Lead Carlson’s internal strategy for corporate and organizational partnerships beyond philanthropy, including relationships connected to student careers and recruitment, experiential learning, executive education, advisory boards, alumni engagement, research and thought leadership, sponsorship, and community impact.
Work closely with UMF corporate and foundation engagement colleagues to coordinate corporate philanthropy and sponsorship opportunities while maintaining Carlson’s broader relationship strategy.
Develop protocols for warm routing, cross-unit handoffs, conflict prevention, relationship progression, and follow-up so that partners experience Carlson as coordinated without requiring all relationships to flow through a central gatekeeper.
Work with faculty leaders, the Associate Dean for Faculty and Research, centers and institutes, and other academic leaders to ensure that rigorous insight and faculty expertise are meaningfully incorporated into external engagement.
Identify and cultivate underdeveloped or unactivated relationships that may advance student learning, professional development, research-informed engagement, alumni leadership, executive education, or broader school priorities.
Establish first-year proof points for the Strategic Partnerships capability and recommend future staffing or resource needs based on demonstrated value and validated demand.
3. Measurement, Accountability, Culture, and Change Leadership — 25%
Establish and maintain a measurement framework that distinguishes among school-level outcomes, unit-level contribution metrics, and External Engagement process metrics.
Develop first-year goals and proof points for the External Engagement organization, including progress on strategic partner portfolio development, UMF coordination, relationship intelligence, warm handoffs, advisory board integration, alumni engagement at scale, faculty/research engagement, and partner experience.
Promote a culture of collaboration, transparency, and shared relationship intelligence across the school.
Ensure that external engagement is understood as a force multiplier for units, centers, programs, faculty, and staff—not as a compliance function or centralizing mechanism.
Lead change through clear communication, reliable follow-through, visible value creation, and disciplined escalation when coordination challenges arise.
Build trust with faculty, staff, centers, institutes, programs, and units whose external relationships are central to Carlson’s success.
Oversee the development and use of relationship intelligence infrastructure, including Salesforce adoption, data standards, partner briefings, reporting, and appropriate coordination with UMF systems.
Ensure that technology supports relationship strategy and partner experience rather than becoming a compliance exercise disconnected from faculty and staff needs.
Develop protocols for decision rights, escalation, and conflict resolution when external engagement opportunities involve multiple units or school-level strategic partners.
Report to the Dean and senior leadership on the health and trajectory of Carlson’s external engagement, including relationship quality, partner experience, progress toward strategic outcomes, and future investment needs.
Role Boundaries
This is not a chief development officer role. Philanthropy and sponsorship are important outcomes and require close partnership with UMF, but the Assistant Dean's primary responsibility is Carlson's broader external engagement strategy.
This is not a marketing or events role. Communications, brand visibility, and events are important partners in external engagement, but the Assistant Dean is responsible for relationship strategy, partner experience, and school-wide external engagement outcomes.
This is not a central-control role. Many of Carlson's most valuable relationships are and should remain owned by faculty, staff, centers, departments, programs, and units. The Assistant Dean is responsible for building the connective capacity that allows those relationships to become more visible, coordinated, reciprocal, and valuable.
This is not a purely administrative role. The position requires external credibility, strategic judgement, internal influence, and the ability to build a new capability across a complex institution.
The employer reserves the right to change or assign additional duties to this position.
Location and Work Environment: This is a hybrid position and will require 3 days on campus (potentially more, depending on business need). Any in-person work will be located on the UMN Twin Cities campus.
This position is not eligible for H-1B or green card sponsorship.
This role leads a new, integrated External Engagement group within Minnesota Carlson. That group brings together Alumni Relations and Annual Giving, Operations, and a new, dedicated Strategic Partnerships team. It reports to the Dean. The operating model is an aligned ecosystem in which distributed relationship ownership is supported by this school-wide External Engagement group.
Together, the assistant dean and their team extend the reach and impact of Carlson's investments in academic excellence. Faculty expertise and rigorous scholarship, academic programs, student talent, alumni commitment, and trusted external relationships are powerful strengths in their own right. Together, External Engagement provides the connective capacity to bring those strengths together with the needs, capabilities, networks, and resources of key external partners, allowing us to generate value no single program, relationship, or unit could create alone. Done well, this work will create stronger opportunities, broaden the reach of faculty insight, deepen reciprocal partnerships, and strengthen Minnesota Carlson and the communities it serves.
About the Carlson School of Management
Located on the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus, the Carlson School of Management exemplifies a commitment to excellence through a focus on experiential learning and international education, and by maintaining strong ties with the Minneapolis/Saint Paul business community. Through its undergraduate and graduate programs, Minnesota Carlson offers access to world-renowned faculty members and an alumni network of 62,000 people. Learn more at carlsonschool.umn.edu.
Applications must be submitted online. To be considered for this position, please click the Apply button and follow the instructions. You will be given the opportunity to complete an online application for the position and attach a cover letter and resume.
Additional documents may be attached after application by accessing your "My Job Applications" page and uploading documents in the "My Cover Letters and Attachments" section.
Required application materials: Resume and Cover Letter
To request an accommodation during the application process, please e-mail [email protected] or call (612) 624-8647.
The University recognizes and values the importance of diversity and inclusion in enriching the employment experience of its employees and in supporting the academic mission. The University is committed to attracting and retaining employees with varying identities and backgrounds.
The University of Minnesota provides equal access to and opportunity in its programs, facilities, and employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, national origin, gender, age, marital status, disability, public assistance status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. To learn more about diversity at the U: http://diversity.umn.edu
Any offer of employment is contingent upon the successful completion of a background check. Our presumption is that prospective employees are eligible to work here. Criminal convictions do not automatically disqualify finalists from employment.
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (UMTC)
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities (UMTC), is among the largest public research universities in the country, offering undergraduate, graduate, and professional students a multitude of opportunities for study and research. Located at the heart of one of the nation's most vibrant, diverse metropolitan communities, students on the campuses in Minneapolis and St. Paul benefit from extensive partnerships with world-renowned health centers, international corporations, government agencies, and arts, nonprofit, and public service organizations.
At the University of Minnesota, we are proud to be recognized by Forbes as a Best Employer for Company Culture (2026), Best Employer for Women (2023, 2025, 2026), and Best Employer by State (2022-2026). In 2026, we also received Culture Excellence & Industry Awards recognition for employee appreciation and work-life flexibility.
