The Institution

The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) is a preeminent institution of Jewish higher education, training thoughtful, innovative leaders—rabbis, cantors, educators, lay leaders, and scholars—who strengthen our communities with a vision of Judaism that is deeply grounded in the Jewish past and thoroughly engaged with contemporary society while helping guide American Judaism’s future. JTS also provides high-caliber lifelong learning and professional development to our alumni, adult learners, and Jewish communities throughout North America. Through its Library, JTS preserves and provides global access to the largest collection of Judaica in the Western Hemisphere, serving students and scholars worldwide.

Students at JTS enjoy an unparalleled depth and breadth of resources. They are taught by a world-renowned faculty offering the most extensive Jewish Studies program in North America, as well as professional mentors deeply committed to developing the next generation of Jewish leaders. The five schools of JTS include an undergraduate institution, a rabbinical school, a cantorial school, a graduate school of education, and a graduate school for Jewish studies. JTS is also home to cutting-edge centers for pastoral education, spiritual arts, interreligious dialogue and immersive programs in Israel. 

JTS students come from varied backgrounds, but they share a passion for and commitment to Jewish life and learning, and a devotion to bringing Judaism alive for the next generation. The passion of our students and faculty shines through—in classrooms, the Beit Midrash, and the JTS Library; in daily prayer and community learning programs and in their commitment to the Jewish community.

For 140 years, JTS has served as the vital center for the intellectual and spiritual life in North America. The leaders and scholars of JTS, from Schechter, Kaplan, Finkelstein and Heschel to Schorsh, Eisen and Schwartz have been leading voices in American Jewish thought and practice. Through our training of outstanding leaders and our engagement with Jewish communities, we strengthen Jewish life in North America and remain a key voice in the ongoing conversation about the future direction of American Judaism.  

On July 1, 2026, Rabbi Mike Uram became the ninth Chancellor of JTS, bringing a distinguished record of leadership in Jewish learning, innovation, and engagement. As Chancellor, Uram is leading JTS through a period of meaningful change, strengthening institutional resilience, and deepening the connection of current and emerging Jewish leaders to Jewish tradition.

The Opportunity

Position: Vice Chancellor & Chief Advancement Officer

Location: New York, NY

Reporting Relationship: Chancellor, Mike Uram

Website: https://www.jtsa.edu/

The Position

The Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) seeks an accomplished, strategic, and relationship-driven advancement leader to serve as its next Vice Chancellor and Chief Advancement Officer (CAO). Reporting directly to the Chancellor and serving as a member of the senior leadership team, the CAO will lead JTS’s advancement enterprise and play a central role in securing the philanthropic resources and relationships necessary to advance the institution’s mission and future aspirations. Working closely with the Chancellor, Board of Trustees, senior leaders, faculty, alumni, and the broader JTS community, the CAO will strengthen philanthropic engagement, expand and diversify the institution’s donor community, and cultivate enduring relationships with individuals and institutions invested in JTS’s impact.

The CAO will join JTS at an important moment in the institution’s evolution. Bringing together rigorous Jewish scholarship, the preparation of religious and educational leaders, lifelong learning, and engagement with Jewish communities, JTS seeks to turn Jewish scholarship into transformative action and leadership. Its distinctive assets include an extensive academic portfolio, extraordinary library collections, and a global network of more than 3,500 alumni. Against this backdrop, the CAO will have the opportunity to articulate a compelling philanthropic vision for JTS and connect the institution’s priorities and possibilities with the interests and aspirations of current and prospective donors.

Serving as both an enterprise-level strategist and an active fundraiser, the CAO will set the direction for an integrated, sophisticated, and results-oriented advancement program. Building upon JTS’s established philanthropic foundation, the CAO will identify opportunities to grow and diversify support, strengthen major and principal gift fundraising, and deepen relationships with alumni and existing donors. An important priority will be reengaging donors whose connection to JTS has diminished over time while developing meaningful relationships with a new and emerging generation of philanthropists who can help sustain the institution well into the future. The CAO will bring creativity and innovation to JTS’s approach to philanthropy, exploring new strategies for engaging constituents, communicating impact, and inspiring investment in the institution’s mission and future.

Central to the CAO’s success will be a close and highly collaborative partnership with the Chancellor. The CAO will help translate the Chancellor’s vision and JTS’s institutional priorities into a powerful and persuasive case for philanthropic investment, strategically engaging the Chancellor, trustees, senior leaders, faculty, and other ambassadors in cultivating and strengthening donor relationships. The CAO will also personally develop, solicit, and steward relationships with significant donors and prospects while expanding the community of individuals and institutions connected to JTS. This builds upon the position’s historic expectation that the advancement leader personally cultivate and solicit high-level gifts while enabling the Chancellor, Board, and other institutional leaders to participate effectively in philanthropic outreach.

The successful candidate will combine a record of significant fundraising achievement with the capacity to lead people, build trust, and navigate a complex institution with diplomacy, judgment, and an enterprise-wide perspective. The CAO will honor the relationships and traditions that have sustained JTS while bringing an innovative, creative, and forward-looking perspective to how the institution engages donors, communicates its impact, and builds the philanthropic community required for its future. With JTS’s work spanning rabbinical and cantorial education, Jewish studies, educational leadership, professional and lifelong learning, and broader community engagement, the CAO will have a rich and multifaceted institutional story from which to inspire philanthropic partnership.

 The Candidate

The successful candidate will be an accomplished advancement executive and sophisticated relationship builder with a demonstrated ability to translate institutional vision, mission, and priorities into compelling opportunities for philanthropic investment. The Vice Chancellor and Chief Advancement Officer (CAO) will bring a record of building meaningful relationships with major donors and prospects, securing significant philanthropic support, and developing advancement strategies that strengthen both near-term results and long-term institutional sustainability. Equally important will be the ability to serve as a trusted strategic partner to the Chancellor, Board of Trustees, and senior leadership, bringing sound judgment, creativity, and an enterprise-wide perspective to JTS’s advancement efforts.

The CAO will be both a strategist and a highly engaged fundraiser, comfortable moving between setting direction for the advancement enterprise and personally cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding important relationships. The ideal candidate will understand how to build upon a strong base of committed supporters while broadening the philanthropic community around an institution, engaging new generations of donors, and creating pathways for individuals to develop increasingly meaningful relationships with JTS. Given the breadth of JTS’s academic, religious, educational, and community-facing work, the CAO will possess the intellectual curiosity and communication skills to understand a complex institution and articulate its impact in ways that resonate with a wide range of constituents. JTS’s website presents this work across religious leadership, academic Jewish studies, lifelong and professional studies, and broader Jewish learning and engagement.

A collaborative and empowering leader, the CAO will build trust across the institution and inspire a high-performing advancement team around an ambitious and shared vision for philanthropy. The successful candidate will demonstrate the interpersonal sophistication to engage effectively with donors, trustees, alumni, faculty, institutional leaders, and other members of the JTS community, recognizing that successful advancement depends upon partnership across the institution. The prior Vice Chancellor for Institutional Advancement profile similarly emphasized collaboration across a complex organization, partnership with institutional leadership, team leadership, persuasive communication, and knowledge of the Jewish philanthropic landscape.

Above all, the CAO will bring an authentic connection to the mission and aspirations of JTS and an appreciation for its distinctive place within Jewish life. The successful candidate will be energized by the opportunity to help position JTS for its next chapter, honoring the institution’s history and longstanding relationships while embracing new ideas, audiences, and approaches to philanthropy. The CAO will lead with integrity, discretion, humility, and confidence, combining respect for institutional culture with the ambition and persistence required to expand JTS’s philanthropic reach and impact.

Key Responsibilities

Advancement Strategy & Institutional Leadership        

• Develop and execute a comprehensive, multi-year advancement strategy aligned with JTS’s mission, institutional priorities, and long-term aspirations.

• Serve as a strategic partner and trusted advisor to the Chancellor on philanthropy, donor engagement, and opportunities to strengthen JTS’s position within the broader philanthropic community.

• Participate actively as a member of the senior leadership team, bringing an advancement perspective to institutional strategy, priority setting, and decision-making.

• Translate JTS’s strategic priorities into compelling philanthropic opportunities and a clear, differentiated case for support.

• Establish ambitious, achievable fundraising goals and create the strategies, systems, and accountability necessary to deliver against them.

 Philanthropy & Donor Engagement

• Develop strategies to expand and diversify JTS’s donor community, including thoughtfully reengaging donors whose relationships with the institution have lapsed or diminished and creating renewed opportunities for connection and philanthropic investment.

• Cultivate the next generation of JTS supporters, developing engagement strategies that introduce new and emerging philanthropists to the institution and build meaningful relationships over time.

• Build a strong pipeline of prospective donors and create meaningful pathways for supporters to deepen their engagement and investment in JTS.

• Bring creativity and innovation to JTS’s approach to philanthropy, identifying new strategies, channels, partnerships, and opportunities to engage donors, strengthen relationships, and inspire significant investment.

• Strengthen the culture and practice of stewardship, ensuring donors understand the impact of their philanthropy and experience an ongoing, meaningful connection to JTS.

Chancellor, Board & Institutional Partnerships

• Build a highly effective fundraising partnership with the Chancellor, equipping and supporting the Chancellor in cultivating, soliciting, and stewarding JTS’s most important philanthropic relationships.

• Partner closely with the Board of Trustees and other lay leaders, engaging them as ambassadors, connectors, and philanthropic partners and helping activate their relationships on behalf of JTS.

• Collaborate with academic and administrative leadership, faculty, and program leaders to identify philanthropic priorities and develop compelling opportunities for donor investment.

• Foster shared ownership of advancement across JTS, ensuring that fundraising and external engagement are understood as institution-wide priorities.

• Represent JTS with credibility and effectiveness among donors, prospects, alumni, foundations, community leaders, and other external constituents.

Advancement Operations & Performance

• Ensure JTS maintains the advancement infrastructure, processes, systems, and data necessary to support sophisticated relationship management and sustained fundraising performance.

• Establish meaningful goals, metrics, and reporting practices to assess progress, strengthen accountability, and enable informed decision-making.

• Partner with Finance and other institutional leaders to ensure appropriate coordination around gift planning, revenue projections, philanthropic commitments, and institutional priorities.

• Ensure disciplined portfolio and pipeline management across the advancement function, creating visibility into opportunities, activity, and anticipated results.

• Apply data and market insight to evaluate advancement performance, identify opportunities, and continuously strengthen fundraising strategy and execution.

Team Leadership & Organizational Culture

• Lead, develop, and inspire a high-performing advancement team, establishing clear expectations while fostering collaboration, accountability, professional growth, and shared commitment to JTS’s mission.

• Assess the structure, capabilities, and deployment of the advancement function and align talent and resources with JTS’s evolving philanthropic priorities.

• Encourage collaboration across advancement disciplines and build an integrated approach to donor engagement, fundraising, stewardship, alumni relations, and advancement operations.

• Model a leadership style characterized by integrity, transparency, sound judgment, collaboration, and a commitment to excellence.

• Build an advancement culture that balances the importance of longstanding relationships with the ambition, innovation, and disciplined execution necessary to expand JTS’s philanthropic reach.

Key Relationships 

Reports To: Chancellor

Direct Reports: Chief Communications Officer, Senior Director of Major Gifts and Planned Giving, Director of Institutional Grants, Director of Alumni Affairs, Director of Special Events, Advancement Services Manager, Stewardship Manager and Development Associate.

Key Internal Contacts: Board of Trustees, including Board leadership and relevant committees, Senior Leadership Team, Academic Deans and other academic leadership, Faculty and program leadership, Finance and Administration leadership, Alumni engagement colleagues and other institutional partners.

Key External Contacts: Donors, foundations, alumni, academic partners, Jewish communal leaders, government officials, and broader community stakeholders.

Education

• A bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution is required.

• An advanced degree is preferred. 

Compensation

• JTS offers a base compensation of approximately $250,000 - $300,000. Additional benefits will be provided to the successful candidate.

Application Process

• While the requisition will remain open until the role is filled, preference will be given to interested and qualified candidates who submit a CV to: JTSCAO@KornFerry.com.   

******

Korn Ferry shall provide equal employment opportunity to all qualified candidates, and will refer candidates without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, veteran status or any other legally protected basis. Artificial Intelligence tools may be used in connection with the recruitment process for this position.