Iona College Announces Senior Vice President for Advancement & External Affairs to Lead Fundraising Efforts

Laura Doherty brings over two decades of successful higher education fundraising experience to Iona

January 20, 2022

Leadership

NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. — Iona College today announced the appointment of Laura Doherty as senior vice president for Advancement & External Affairs, where she will provide strategic direction to propel Iona’s fundraising goals to new heights while exploring creative ways to expand private support for the College and its students. Doherty’s appointment is effective Feb. 1, 2022.

An experienced advancement administrator and fundraiser, Doherty most recently served at Purchase College as vice president for the Office of Institutional Advancement and executive director of the Purchase College Foundation and Charitable Entities. Prior to her positions at Purchase, Doherty was CEO of the William & Mary Business School Foundation as well as associate dean of Advancement for the Raymond A. Mason School of Business at William & Mary.

“We are delighted to have someone of Laura’s caliber join us at Iona,” said Seamus Carey, Ph.D., president of Iona College. “She has delivered extraordinary results through past advancement programs during her career and now her innovative leadership will strengthen our efforts at the College. Her vision for the Office of Advancement & External Affairs aligns ideally with the new chapter we have begun at Iona.”

During her time at William & Mary, Doherty’s team successfully doubled the size of the William & Mary Business School Foundation’s endowment while increasing unrestricted annual fund totals by 30 percent and providing start-up capital for new degree programs. Notably, Doherty was part of the advancement team that raised more than $1 billion for the university’s For the Bold campaign.

Before joining William & Mary, Doherty held multiple leadership roles at Randolph-Macon College, where she launched and completed the Building Extraordinary capital campaign and raised $100 million. With over two decades of higher education experience, she also held director-level positions at the University of Richmond and the University of Virginia.

“I am honored to join the Iona College community and continue to build upon the College’s legacy of excellence,” said Doherty. “With such a supportive community and generous donor history, there are no bounds to where Iona can go next.”

Iona has experienced significant financial growth recently, particularly the successful completion of its $150 million fundraising campaign, which paved the way for transformational changes across campus and directly supported student scholarships, faculty enrichment and innovative new programs. Launched in 2015, the Iona Forever campaign concluded on Sept. 19, 2021, and was the most successful campaign in Iona’s history.

Separately, Iona also announced its collaboration with NewYork-Presbyterian to form the NewYork-Presbyterian Iona School of Health Sciences with a $20 million accompanying gift. The NewYork-Presbyterian Iona School of Health Sciences will be housed on Iona’s newly acquired campus in Bronxville, N.Y., offering a new vision for collaborative health care education, modern workforce development, and community care.

ABOUT IONA
Founded in 1940, Iona University is a master's-granting private, Catholic, coeducational institution of learning in the tradition of the Edmund Rice Christian Brothers. Iona's 45-acre New Rochelle campus and 28-acre Bronxville campus are just 20 miles north of Midtown Manhattan. With a total enrollment of nearly 4,000 students and an alumni base of more than 50,000 around the world, Iona is a diverse community of learners and scholars dedicated to academic excellence and the values of justice, peace and service. Iona is highly accredited, offering undergraduate degrees in liberal arts, science and business administration, as well as Master of Arts, Master of Science and Master of Business Administration degrees and numerous advanced certificate programs. Iona students enjoy small class sizes, engaged professors and a wide array of academic programs across the School of Arts & Science; LaPenta School of Business; NewYork-Presbyterian Iona School of Health Sciences; and Hynes Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. Iona is widely recognized in prestigious rankings, including The Princeton Review’s 2025 national list of “The Best 390 Colleges” and The Wall Street Journal/College Pulse’s “2024 Best Colleges in America,” which ranked Iona at #66 in the nation overall and #8 in the nation among Catholic schools. Iona’s LaPenta School of Business is also accredited by AACSB International, a recognition awarded to just six percent of business schools worldwide. In addition, The Princeton Review recognized Iona’s on-campus MBA program as a “Best Business School for 2023.” Iona also offers a fully online MBA program for even greater flexibility. In July 2021, Iona announced the establishment of the NewYork-Presbyterian Iona School of Health Sciences, which is now principally located on Iona’s Bronxville campus in collaboration with NewYork-Presbyterian. Connecting to its Irish heritage, the University also recently announced it is expanding abroad with a new campus in County Mayo, Ireland. A school on the rise, Iona officially changed its status from College to University on July 1, 2022, reflecting the growth of its academic programs and the prestige of an Iona education.