Kate Hesser, Assistant Vice President of Development and Chief of Staff, Office of the Senior Vice President

Kate Malone Hesser is the Assistant Vice President of Development and Chief of Staff, Office of the Senior Vice President at Dartmouth College.  In this role Kate oversees the SVP team and the work they do together helping Bob Lasher execute fundraising and strategies, engaging our most dedicated volunteers, and thanking some Dartmouth’s most generous supporters.

Most recently Kate served as the Director for Campaign Planning and Operations for The Call to Lead, working directly with Advancement leadership and the Campaign Executive Committee co-chairs. Before assuming this role, Kate served as Director of Capital Projects, helping to ignite gift discussions in support of the campaign’s earliest construction projects. Kate began her career at Dartmouth in 2010 as Senior Managing Director of the Dartmouth College Fund Fellows Program, managing a team of frontline fundraisers traveling the country securing current-use support.

Prior to Dartmouth, Kate spent nine years at the Harvard College Fund where she most recently held the position of Associate Director of Leadership Giving in which she helped to pioneer outreach and solicitation methods to increase Harvard's current-use fundraising.  In years earlier Kate served as a Harvard College Fund Class Officer with a special focus on older classes and ran 55th, 65th and 70th reunion campaigns as well as the Memorial Gifts Program.

Kate graduated from Wheaton College in Massachusetts and lives in Thetford, Vermont with her husband, two children, and Airedale terrier, Rusty. During 2020-2021 she studied to become a certified Tea Sommelier and does periodic brand collaborations and tastings around the Upper Valley.