Hospital foundation appoints former mayor as chief development officer
Former Santa Fe Mayor Javier Gonzales is the new chief fundraiser for the St. Vincent Hospital Foundation.
The hospital announced Tuesday that Gonzales has been named vice president and chief development officer for the foundation. He will report directly to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center President and CEO Lillian Montoya.
Gonzales is scheduled to start Nov. 16. The chief development officer is responsible for the foundation’s fundraising and development activities on behalf of Christus St. Vincent, according to the job description.
“Javier’s a terrific storyteller, and helping gather those stories to engage donors in making investments in our programs, in our growth, in the work of our caregivers, it’s going to be great for all of us,” Montoya said in a phone interview Tuesday.
Gonzales was mayor of Santa Fe from 2014-18.
He served as director of external affairs for the successful Santa Fe startup Descartes Labs prior to joining Christus St. Vincent.
Gonzales said he is excited about the opportunity to work both with the foundation and the community.
“I thought about it and I thought, ‘You know, whenever I’ve been passionate about a cause, it’s been relatively easy to go out and seek donors to invest in those causes,’ ” Gonzales said. “Now I just have a formal job role to have to do that. But it doesn’t feel like a job to me, quite honestly. This really feels like it is a purposeful engagement in my life at this point.”
During the initial months of the coronavirus pandemic, the foundation helped raise more than $300,000 to support caregivers in two different funds, Montoya said.
“When the community knew we needed help, they leaned in,” Montoya said. “And our care teams responded accordingly. The next several months will be more about COVID response, but it’ll also be about programs like cancer and orthopedic care, and all of those other things that we need help with as an organization and as a community, for which there are donors that want to engage with us. Because they themselves have an experience here and they want those programs to flourish.”