Rachel Jarvis Shah Named Chief Advancement Officer
Dear Westover Community,
I am pleased to announce that Rachel Jarvis Shah will join Westover as Chief Advancement Officer beginning in November.
First, a heartfelt thank you to each of you who gave your time to meet and interview candidates. Your thoughtful questions, candid feedback, and care for Westover’s future shaped this search in meaningful ways.
As Chief Advancement Officer, Rachel will provide strategic leadership for Westover’s advancement program, helping to strengthen philanthropy, deepen relationships across our community, and advance the School’s long-term priorities. She will work closely with school leadership, the Board, and the Advancement team to build a thoughtful and ambitious approach to fundraising, donor engagement, and stewardship.
Rachel comes to Westover with more than two decades of fundraising and advancement experience. Most recently, she served as Director of Leadership and Legacy Giving at St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., where she provided strategic direction for major, principal, and planned giving, strengthened the school’s prospective donor pipeline, and managed relationships with donors capable of making transformational commitments.
Previously, Rachel spent more than five years as Chief Advancement Officer at St. Stephen’s and St. Agnes School in Alexandria, Virginia. There, she served as the school’s chief fundraiser and a member of the senior administrative team, led a 12-person Advancement staff, and oversaw the school’s largest philanthropic effort to date, a $45 million comprehensive campaign, during which she helped secure the two largest gifts in the school’s history.
Earlier in her career, Rachel spent nearly nine years at The George Washington University, where she held a series of increasingly senior development roles, including Assistant Vice President of Development for Principal Gifts. She earned both her M.B.A. and her B.A. in Political Science from The George Washington University.
Rachel shared her enthusiasm for joining the Westover community and the opportunities ahead, saying, “During my visit to campus, I saw a school that lives its values, celebrates the individuality that makes its fabric so distinctive, and, most importantly, empowers its students to lead with confidence and thrive in an increasingly complex world. It is an honor to join Westover at this exciting moment and to help advance its mission and shape its future through a strong and enduring culture of philanthropy.”
Rachel and her family traveled to campus this weekend, visiting a local apple orchard and enjoying the bounty and beauty of fall in New England. She will begin in a hybrid model, alternating weeks between Washington, D.C., and Middlebury in November and December, before moving with her family to North Street and joining us full-time on campus in January.
I look forward to all that Rachel will bring to Westover, and I hope many of you will have the chance to welcome her in the months ahead.
Joyfully,
Polly Fredlund P’25
Head of School
Be Boldly You
Westover School admits students of any race, color, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, national and ethnic origin, or disability to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the School. As a gender-diverse girls school, Westover welcomes applicants and students who are assigned female at birth and/or identify as girls. The School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, national and ethnic origin, disability, or any other status protected by applicable law in the administration of its educational policies, admissions and financial aid policies, and athletic or other school-administered programs.