Krista Raney

LSU Foundation President & CEO

Krista Raney is president and CEO of the LSU Foundation. She is responsible for leading the LSU Foundation’s strategic, continuously evolving support of LSU’s top academic priorities on behalf of students, faculty, and donors. As the foundation’s chief development officer, she drives the comprehensive academic fundraising strategy for LSU and works in concert with LSU’s most supportive donors and friends. 

During her more than 16 years with the LSU Foundation, Raney has provided campus leadership for multiple mega gifts, including a $245 million healthcare partnership, and system-wide leadership for the $1.5 billion Fierce for the Future Campaign, which surpassed the goal in summer 2022 (three years early). Within the LSU Foundation, Raney spearheaded the restructure of the development enterprise to effectively drive resources for refocused fundraising priorities and built the first cohort fundraising model at LSU. 

Raney is a 2026 Capital Gala Faces of Impact Honoree and was named to the Business Report’s 2023 Influential Women in Business, the Baton Rouge chapter of American Fundraising Professionals’ 2022 Outstanding Professional Fundraiser, and one of the top Forty Under 40 in Baton Rouge in 2017. She serves on the board of the Greater Baton Rouge Economic Partnership and is a member of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. She has presented several times for the Council in Advancement and Support of Education and served on the Baton Rouge Affiliate of Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in 2012 and 2013. 

Raney earned a bachelor’s degree and an MBA from LSU and is a Certified Fund Raising Executive through the Association of Fundraising Professionals. She joined the LSU Foundation team in 2010. The LSU Foundation Board of Directors named Raney to the role of president and CEO in May 2025, with an effective date of July 1, 2026, succeeding Robert M. Stuart Jr. She is the first woman to serve as president and CEO of the LSU Foundation.