Associate Director of Athletics, Advancement & Princeton Varsity Club (PVC)
A member of Princeton Athletics since 2012, Brendan Van Ackeren manages the day-to-day operations of the Princeton Varsity Club (PVC). A member of the senior staff, he oversees PVC donor membership programs and helps guide fundraising strategy. Tiger Athletics Give Day (TAGD), an annual Athletics-dedicated 24-hour fundraising initiative, has raised more than $20 million across 60,000 gifts since its inception in 2014. Van Ackeren coordinates alumni cultivation and stewardship events, oversees community service programming (including the Student-Athlete Service Council), and manages the year-end Gary Walters ’67 PVC Awards Banquet in celebration of Princeton Athletics and its senior class.
Van Ackeren previously served as a member of Princeton Athletics’ Finance and Business Operations and oversaw game-day ticketing and event management operations, and helped lead implementation efforts around a new University-wide chart of accounts, travel management platform (Concur) and ticketing system (AudienceView). Van Ackeren was honored with Princeton Athletics’ Lorin Maurer h78 Award in 2020.
Prior to Princeton, Van Ackeren was a business consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PwC) Mergers & Acquisitions advisory practice in New York City, where he helped support due diligence reviews and merger integration efforts for clients including The Carlyle Group, Abbott Pharmaceuticals, Estée Lauder Companies and Manhattan Supply Company.
A native of Bethlehem, Pa., Van Ackeren holds a Bachelor of Science with honors in industrial engineering and a minor in business from Lehigh University. Van Ackeren was a four-year letter winner and team captain for Lehigh Football, and was honored with the Athletic Department’s John A. Cable Award for outstanding graduating male leader. Van Ackeren resides in Princeton with his wife Lisa (Lehigh ’09; head coach of Princeton softball), daughter Jordyn and son Jace.
Select photos of Brendan Van Ackeren during his time with Princeton Athletics:
