Darrow Zeidenstein

Darrow Zeidenstein serves as chief development officer for the American Cancer Society. In this role, Darrow leads the organization’s Development Pillar, with responsibility for all aspects of resource generation within the pillar, including corporate partnerships, philanthropy, planned giving, Discovery Shops, and community-based fundraising, and all revenue-generating field operations, empowering team members and volunteers to leverage the inherent strength of the American Cancer Society to achieve mission goals.

An established leader in the development space, Darrow has more than 30 years of experience building and leading teams and managing diverse revenue streams. His expertise ranges from higher education to health care and includes deep nonprofit experience, as well as large-scale campaign leadership.

Darrow comes to ACS most recently from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he served as SVP and chief philanthropy officer since 2019, overseeing fundraising strategy and execution. While there, he led MD Anderson's $2.5 billion campaign, grew annual fundraising from $153 million to $509 million, achieving a 22% compound annual growth rate with revenue increases every year, and guided the philanthropy division to achieve peer-leading productivity. He also played an instrumental role in securing a $150 million gift to create the Kinder Children's Cancer Center, a collaboration with Texas Children's Hospital, and spearheaded the build-out of a sophisticated decision science and analytics capability to enhance transparency, accountability, and data-driven decision-making.

Darrow also has more than 15 years of experience at Rice University, where he served as vice president for development and alumni relations. While at Rice, he worked closely with the University’s Board of Trustees and served as a member of the ET, leading his team to increase philanthropic commitments nearly four-fold over 15 years. He led Rice’s successful Centennial Campaign, which finished with a total $1.1 billion in 2013. Other previous experience includes time with Marts and Lundy, one of the nation's oldest and most distinguished philanthropy consulting firms, where Darrow worked with clients including Memorial Sloan-Kettering, the National Audubon Society, Columbia University, and others. Other previous fundraising experience includes experience with the University of Texas at Austin and at NYU Stern School of Business.

Darrow has been recognized by the Association of Fundraising Professionals with a Byron Welch Award for Lifetime Achievement in Fundraising and holds many academic honors as well, including having served as a Fulbright Scholar and a National Science Foundation Fellow (Syria). He holds a PhD and an MA degree in social-cultural anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin, as well as an undergraduate degree in the same field from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Darrow lives in Houston, Texas, with his wife Jill, an attorney. They have two sons. In his free time Darrow enjoys sports and exercise (tennis and hiking are favorite activities), cooking, and traveling.