Dr. Ari Betof is president of Organizational Sustainability Consulting and a nationally recognized expert in the area of nonprofit organizational stewardship and sustainability.

 

In addition to his work with individual schools, nonprofits, and private sector companies, Ari’s clients include the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC)—where he was named a NEASC Senior Advisor. He has also recently served as a consultant to the Association of Delaware Valley Independent Schools (ADVIS), Association of Independent Schools of Greater Washington (AISGW), New Jersey Association of Independent Schools (NJAIS), and Southern Association of Independent Schools (SAIS).  

Ari’s consulting work draws upon fifteen years of leadership and governance experience building sustainable organizations and maximizing mission-aligned revenue growth. His facility with organizational effectiveness, group dynamics, and crisis management is paired with his proven track record of cultivating high-impact change. Ari brings together skills in strategy, analysis, and strategic planning with a nuanced understanding of fundraising, enrollment management and branding in support of his clients. He leverages expertise facilitating group process with diverse sets of stakeholders. Ari is an agile, savvy, and emotionally intelligent partner who builds trusting relationships, achieves results, develops others, and creates scalable systems. 

 

Ari has been a lecturer in University of Pennsylvania’s PennGSE Mid-Career Doctoral Program in Educational Leadership and School Leadership Program. In the 2017-2018 academic year, Ari designed and taught the pilot of Educational Finance and Organizational Sustainability, a five-part program for alumni of the PennGSE Mid-Career Doctoral Program. Ari has also served as a mentor in Harvard University’s School Leadership Program, faculty member in the NAIS School Leadership Institute, and judge for the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) Circle of Excellence Awards.

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Ari has served as an independent school trustee, head of school, administrator, and teacher. He began his career as a physics and mathematics teacher and coach. Ari held administrative roles including director of institutional advancement, director of enrollment management, and director of strategic planning. He then served as head of school before founding Organizational Sustainability Consulting with his wife Shauna Betof in 2018. His experience includes working at day and boarding schools; schools as small as 170 students and as large as 1,100 students; single campus and multi-campus schools; single and multi-division schools; and religiously affiliated and nonsectarian schools. 

 

Ari served two terms on the Board of Directors of the Friends Council on Education (FCE) and as a member of FCE’s Development Committee and the National Friends Education Fund Working Group. He has also been a trustee of Newtown Friends School (Newtown, PA) and Cambridge Friends School (Cambridge, MA).

 

Ari earned his doctorate in educational leadership from the University of Pennsylvania and graduated with a B.S. in physics and mathematics from the Guilford College honors program. His 2011 doctoral dissertation, “Leading in the Light: A Study of Financial and Organizational Sustainability of Friends Schools,” was awarded with distinction. Ari is an executive MBA candidate in Cornell University’s Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management where he is an Emerging Markets Institute Fellow. Ari, his wife, and two daughters live in Brookline, MA.