New vice president for resource development

Dear members of the MIT community,  

I write with the exciting news that, from a national search, I have selected a new vice president for resource development: Boi Carpenter, currently vice president for development and alumni relations at Johns Hopkins University. She will begin her new role with us on March 16.    

A leader in building support for science  

Boi (pronounced “BO-ee”) comes to us after 25 years at Hopkins, where she helped guide institutional fundraising strategy, the philanthropic vision and the execution of multiple fundraising campaigns. For 16 years, with rising responsibilities, she built support for the school of medicine and its key departments and institutes, working hand in hand with Hopkins clinicians. In 2016, she was promoted to serve as the university's senior associate vice president for development and alumni relations. In 2023, she was chosen as vice president of development, overseeing a team of more than 350 staff and managing an annual budget of $70 million for the entire development and alumni relations program. Under her leadership, her direct reporting line teams raised $542 million in the last fiscal year.  

Boi is known to have a great eye for talent, an instinct for mentorship and a gift for managing teams for top performance. The future of the Institute has never depended more on effective fundraising, so making sure our teams can flourish, supported by optimal systems, structures and data, will be especially important.  

I was struck by Boi’s confidence, curiosity, warmth and ease in exploring the breadth of subjects we study at MIT, from innovation to AI, philosophy to astrophysics. She was also clearly attracted to our collaborative, problem-solving culture and our bedrock commitment to excellence, familiar from her years at Hopkins. Boi sees herself as a translator, someone who can make complex subjects accessible, tangible and compelling for prospective supporters. I look forward to working with her as we make the case for the distinctive value of MIT.  

Born in England, her mother’s home country, Boi early on spent time in Sierra Leone, where her father grew up. At the age of 10, she moved with her family to the US and spent her formative years in the Midwest. With a bachelor’s from Purdue and a law degree from Tulane, Boi was planning to work as an international attorney when, by a chance connection, she was recruited to work in advancement for the University of Memphis law school. Her resource development career unfolded from there.  

Boi currently lives just outside Baltimore and plans to move to Kendall Square in the new year so she can be right in the heart of things.  

Appreciation and gratitude  

As I make this important appointment, I’m tremendously grateful to Eric Grimson, who gamely took on the role of interim VPRD last July. He will lead the office until Boi arrives and then continue in his longstanding position as chancellor for academic advancement.  

Please join me in thanking Eric – and in welcoming Boi to MIT.  

Sincerely,  

Sally Kornbluth