Brief info
Associate
Email: [email protected]
Gregory R. Leet, M.N.P.S. has retired after a 30+ year career in advancement and fundraising but, on a part time basis, will advise client organizations, their leaders, and former candidates in public and private higher education and research institutions. For six years prior to retiring, he served as a senior consultant at Aspen Leadership Group where he led dozens of successful searches building more impactful fundraising teams and leaders in higher education, research, and biomedical institutions.
Prior to joining ALG, Leet was vice president for advancement at The Jackson Laboratory where he led development, strategic communications, and trustee relations. Before this, he served as vice chancellor for university advancement at University of California, Irvine Under his leadership, UCI became the youngest university to complete a $1 billion fundraising campaign. He also secured UCI's then-largest gift ever of $40 million to establish the brand new Sue and Bill Gross School of Nursing.
Leet also held leadership positions at the Arizona State University (ASU) Foundation, where he managed the development staff for a then-planned $1.3 billion campaign. He also collaborated on projects such as the ASU Biodesign Institute and helped with ASU’s rebranding initiative and implementation of an innovative prospect management program, which garnered national awards from the Council for Advancement & Support of Education (CASE). Prior to ASU, he held several frontline major gift officer and management positions at Creighton University, a private research university. While directing Creighton’s inaugural principal gifts program, he played a key role helping the university secure its largest ever gift of $50 million. Leet’s passion for fundraising began as an undergraduate student, when he helped his alma mater’s establish its first phonathon, using all volunteer student callers.
Leet received his bachelor’s degree in agricultural journalism from Kansas State University and his master’s degree in nonprofit management at Arizona State University. He has served on the board of directors for the Orange County (CA) Business Council and one*n*ten, a Phoenix nonprofit serving homeless LGBTQ+ youth, and the board of overseers for the Bushnell Performing Arts Center in Hartford, CT. Leet resides in Phoenix, Arizona with his husband, a woodwinds professor in the School of Music, Dance and Theater at Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts.