Ms. Sarah West

Sarah West is a nationally recognized senior institutional and external relations advancement professional with more than 40 years of experience in research-intensive higher education and biomedical research and healthcare environments. During her career, she has served as a senior advancement executive at University of California-San Diego, Georgetown University and Duke University and more recently, as a philanthropic management consultant to clients including the University of Chicago, NC State University and City of Hope, a top ten NIH-designated cancer system.  During her career, Sarah has had executive oversight or acted as strategic counsel for six multi-billion-dollar comprehensive fundraising campaigns. Sarah brings to the board extensive experience in strategic planning and organizational development, fractional/interim executive leadership, campaign architecture and design, and transformative and principal gift fundraising.

As a member of the State Board of Community Colleges, Sarah currently serves as chair of the Programs and Student Success Committee.  Her board tenure has included service as a co-leader, in 2021- 2023, of a two-year effort to strengthen and refine the Board’s governance practices and policies as well as terms as vice chair of the Strategic Planning Committee and vice chair of the Programs and Student Success Committee.

Sarah holds an MBA degree from the Anderson School at UCLA and a B.A. in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As an undergraduate at UNC-Chapel Hill, she was inducted into the Order of the Grail-Valkyries and the Order of the Old Well in recognition of excellence in academics, leadership, service, and character.