Eric Rosario

Search Director

Email: [email protected]

Eric Rosario serves as Search Director for Aspen Leadership Group, leading and managing executive searches in philanthropy for higher education, healthcare, and the entire nonprofit sector. Eric has a particular focus on building teams that report to the organization’s senior advancement leaders, including searches for positions such as associate/assistant vice president, senior director of development, director, and major gift officer, all roles that Eric has successfully served in.

Eric is a seasoned higher education development professional with 30 years of distinguished experience. Eric recently served as a Senior Development Officer at Cornell University College of Arts and Sciences. Earlier in his career, he was a development officer at Cornell University for over 16 years, including serving as Director of Development for the College of Veterinary Medicine and Director of Leadership Gifts for the entire university.

Additionally, he served Ithaca College for 9 years. As Associate Vice President of Individual Giving, he led a team comprising Major and Leadership Gifts, Family Giving, and Planned Giving. He revitalized the college’s leadership annual giving program, reversing declining membership while setting new membership records as Director of the President’s Associates giving society. As Senior Director of Prospect Development and Leadership Gifts, Eric set up the college’s first formal prospect pipeline process and a new individual giving program that exceeded its dollar goals.

Eric has a strong commitment to public service, having served as Alderman and Acting Mayor for the City of Ithaca. He is a co-founder of the award-winning Latino Civic Association of Tompkins County. He was recognized in 2022 by the Ithaca Urban Renewal Agency for his “pivotal role in shaping the Agency’s community development work, including...construction of over 1,000 affordable housing units during his term.” He is actively involved in Ithaca’s historic preservation, earning awards for some of the homes he and his partners have preserved and renovated. He is also a Trustee for Ithaca’s Sciencenter, a nationally recognized hands-on science museum. Since 2014 Eric has been invited annually as a guest lecturer for Cornell University’s Nancy E. and Peter C. Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering “Science Policy Boot Camp” graduate seminar. Eric employs a case study approach to illustrate, per Professor Chris Schaffer, “an excellent example of how scientific ideas and analysis can influence the formulation of public policy. Eric presents this case extraordinarily well, with deep student engagement."

Eric earned a B.A. in History at Cornell, where he is an active alum and has served on the University Council. He lives in downtown Ithaca with his wife, Neha, a professor of economics at Binghamton University, and their deceptively innocent-looking black Lab rescue mix, Ezra.