The Case for a CAO: Why Everyone Needs a Chief Alumni Officer

Alumni networks are no longer just a “nice to have” – they’re a strategic asset. From boomerang hires and brand advocacy to client referrals and talent pipelines, alumni engagement is delivering measurable business value across industries. So why is the role of Chief Alumni Officer (CAO) still so rare in the corporate world?

The Case for a CAO: Why Everyone Needs a Corporate Alumni Officer

Thank you to our guest speakers:

Anna Moreno Damico, Global Director of Alumni Strategy & Engagement, Boston Consulting Group
Danya Ray, Alumni Relations Manager, Seyfarth Shaw LLP

Five Things We Learned About the Case for a CAO:

Keep your alumni programs simple …

“I really believe in the employee experience, alumni experience and candidate experience. If you cannot find people easily on LinkedIn, or if you cannot sign up for an event or webinar with two taps, the experience is broken …”
Anna Moreno Damico

Law firms can be late on board with their alumni programs …

“Law firms didn't start thinking about having alumni programs until the mid-2000s. We still have law firms that don't have an alumni program, even though they see the benefits ....”
Danya Ray

Alumni can bring in huge revenue …

“15 to 30% of revenue has the potential to come from alumni.”
Anna

Put CAO on your to-do list …

“I'm a team of one. I know in consulting companies, there's multiple people in the alumni space. I'm a victim of my own success!
Danya

Promote yourself to CAO anyway …

“If you don't have a Chief Alumni Officer yet, just act like one. Talk to counterparts, reach out to people and get some ideas.”
Anna

Top five Emma quotes

“I am an entrepreneur, so I know what it’s like doing 27 things all at once on a tight budget with not enough help.”

“It doesn't sound terribly good if you talk about the genuinely brilliant things alumni does, then you say: and it contributed 11% of our revenue. It almost makes it sound a little bit dirty that you're doing alumni.”

“What people say about you when you're not in the room. You can't pay money for that.”

“When I go and talk to boards of large banks and large Fortune 100 companies, they're like: how can we be different? I've always been saying: have A CAO. How brilliant does it look?

“You can't always have what you want, right?”

Q&A

Is appointing a CAO the ultimate step in elevating alumni from an afterthought to a long-term strategic partnership?

Anna: We’ve had a Chief Alumni Officer at BCG for five years, during which three people have taken the role. It is important to have a senior person, because when you talk about how to turn former employees into a source of revenue or referrals, you need someone who has a long tenure at the company who will take a clear seat on the executive committee to make leadership decisions and give importance to the function.

Has there been a CAO in the law firm world to date?

Danya: Law firms didn't start thinking about alumni programs until the mid 2000s. We still have law firms that don't have an alumni program, even though they see the benefits, because it takes a lot of decision makers. If we were to appoint a CAO, it would have to be someone very senior who might have been a CSO or CEO in a law firm and already in the C-suite.

Have you had boomerangs this year, and is that an important part of your program?

Danya: Every year I try to align the alumni goals with the firm's priorities. Law firms’ number one reason for having alumni programs is for new business. At BCG, we have around 1000 attorneys. I’m now focusing on smaller strategic dinners with seven to 10 alums and a few of our attorneys. We’ve had two of these events, which have both resulted in new business as well as somebody potentially coming back to the firm after working in government for 20 years. I’m always pushing to have more visibility and talk more about the metrics.

What what does your CAO actually do at BCG?

Anna: We can track our SVP for events, track attendance, and track open rates in newsletters. We can even track satisfaction – we have an annual survey where we ask alums every single year: “Are you satisfied about the level of support you have from us? Are you open to come back to BCG as a boomerang? Would you consider coming back to consulting?” With this type of data, we were able to build a case for a Chief Alumni Officer, to make sure that alumni is a topic in the leadership agenda.

How much revenue has the company made from alumni?

Anna: 15 to 30% of revenue has the potential to come from alumni. We have highs and lows like any other business. But it’s not only revenue. I really believe success for alumni. They can be measurable but also meaningful. We keep saying BCG are a family. You need to explain stuff to your family. I see many counterparts fail in their alumni programs because they're not able to fix the graduations, boarding, and final weeks of an employee’s time. People leave traumatised. The value of a strong brand counts even more than revenue. I really believe success can be measurable in dollars, but also in human touch. 

What advice do you have for people who think appointing a CAO is a really good idea for their business? 

Anna: If you don't have a Chief Alumni Officer yet, just act like one. Talk to counterparts, reach out to people and get some ideas. Brainstorm. Do your homework. Talk to your recruitment alumni. Ask them: “How can our business be helpful to you?” Start to collect stories, build allies, talk to your marketing team and HR. Try to understand how your company does offboarding. Go to recruiting events. Sometimes the recruiting manager and the alumni manager are the same person. Try to understand how candidates behave post life at your company. People don’t join companies anymore and plan to stay 35 years. They stay a few years, get some knowledge, and move on. It's not like it was in the 80s. Try to connect some successful alumni stories into the recruiting message. 

Is becoming a CAO something that all alumni managers should have on their to-do list? 

Danya: I'm a team of one. I know in consulting companies, there's multiple people in the alumni space. I'm a victim of my own success!

Anna: I was a team of one many years ago. I was trying to cover the globe, going from recruiting events to launching newsletters and pulling data. I said: I need some help, and they give me a wonderful intern. But what I really wanted was a manager. Now I have 10 people in my team, and 70 people across all the BCG offices deploying alumni strategy. Now we have an army of people. But it's still not enough. I need more people. I’m sure HR hates me!

Is there a requirement to have a more advanced level of analytics, if you really want to get an alumni program being granular, direct, and actionable?

Anna: This is one of my favourite topics, because it's my biggest challenge. I think it's where we should invest more. I really believe in the employee experience, alumni experience and candidate experience. If you cannot find people easily on LinkedIn, or if you cannot sign up for event of webinar with two taps, the experience is broken. So how can we promote the best possible digital experience? That's why I say it's my biggest challenge because it's something I keep exploring. 

What has been the challenge with tools and technology?

Danya: When I came to this firm about four years ago, I said: “Where's the information on alums so I can get started on a plan?” I was told: “You're starting from scratch. We don't have any email addresses. We don't have one single thing except a name.” So I created a second LinkedIn, named Danya Ray Alumni Manager, and started to create a relationship mapping tool of our alums.

When multiple departments own bits of alumni engagement, how do you make the case for putting it together into one strategy? 

Anna: Alumni relations at BCG have moved out of marketing and are now under the HR umbrella. Alumni depends on many other teams. I need marketing, tech, IT and HR. It doesn't matter where we sit, I'm going to need to have a good relationship with all of my friends, so we need to be a very social team. I have no interest about being independent, because I still believe some people undervalue alumni. We risk being neglected and losing power. I'm happy to be under a bigger umbrella and to protect my team.

Danya: I sit in the marketing and business development department. I work really closely with our business development officers in each of our 18 offices. I keep HR, the office managing partners, the finance department, and the department chairs updated. I’m working constantly with almost every single department.

Do either of you want to be a CAO? 

Dayna: I've been thinking about this for years, I'm all about it. 
Anna: Absolutely!

Presenters:

Anna Moreno Damico, Global Director of Alumni Strategy & Engagement , Boston Consulting Group
Danya Ray, Alumni Relations Manager, Seyfarth Shaw LLP
Emma Sinclair, CEO EnterpriseAlumni