Renata J. Rafferty
Partner
Head of School Search
Governance, Planning, Organizational Development (Turn Around)
Renata Rafferty came to the independent school world after a successful thirty-year career leading an international consulting firm specializing in services to charitable institutions, foundations, and philanthropic families. Following a sabbatical in China teaching at a major university in Guangdong Province, she returned to head two prominent Catholic high schools, Magnificat in Cleveland, Ohio, and Saint Gertrude in Richmond, Virginia. She has also served as an interim private school leader.
A graduate of Mother Theodore Guerin High School in Chicago, she completed her B.A. in Theatre History at Loyola University of Chicago & Rome, Italy; a Fulbright residency in Philology at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland; and her M.A. in Dramatic Theory & Criticism at Tufts University in Boston.
She is the author of two best-selling books in the field of philanthropy (with forewords by Paul Newman), was the nation’s only syndicated columnist on the business of charity (for Gannett), and has been a popular speaker in both the philanthropy and education sectors.
Having lived, worked, and traveled all over the globe, Renata continues to indulge her wanderlust with frequent trips to far-off lands, but returns most often to Poland where her extensive family resides, and to China, the country she calls her second home.