Director, UMass Foundation Board of Directors & Chair, Board of Elementary and Secondary Education
Ms. Craven is the Chief Administrative and Financial Officer of Babson College. The former Executive Director of the UMass Building Authority, she also served as Massachusetts’ First Deputy State Treasurer, was the founding Executive Director of the Massachusetts School Building Authority, and assisted in the writing of ten State budgets for the Massachusetts House of Representatives, with particular focus on hospital and education funding. Katherine was recently named as the 2020 Chief Financial Officer of the Year in the education sector by the Boston Business Journal.
Committed to community and public service, Katherine currently is the Chairwoman of Massachusetts’ Board of Education, and is also the Chairwoman of the Boston Public Facilities Commission and the Chair of the Quincy City Building Committee, in addition to serving as the Treasurer of the Massachusetts Business Roundtable and the MJW Foundation, a private charity affiliated with US Secretary of Labor Martin J. Walsh. Katherine also serves on the Boards of Directors of Massachusetts’ public defense agency, the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the Dorchester Boys’ and Girls’ Club, the Honorary Board for the Massachusetts Down Syndrome Congress, and is an associate member of the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, the Pioneer Institute’s Shamie Center for Better Government, and is a former member of the Governor’s Commission on Mental Retardation, the Board of Governors of the Harvard Club of Boston, the Board of Incorporators for Partners Healthcare Inc, the Massachusetts Association for Mental Health, and MassDevelopment.
She has lectured on topics such as executive leadership and the state budget process at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Northeastern University, and the Donahue Institute at the University of Massachusetts. Katherine has been appointed to various government Transition Teams by both Democrats and Republicans, serving as a co-chair for Boston Mayor Marty Walsh’s transition team in 2013, as a member of the transition teams for Governor Deval Patrick in 2006, State Treasurer Steven Grossman in 2010, and for both State Treasurer Deb Goldberg and Governor Charlie Baker in 2014. A graduate of Harvard College and Boston Latin School, Ms. Craven resides in Brookline with her husband, Dr. Jim Kryzanski, and five children: Delia, Joseph, James, John Francis Xavier, and Fianna