Vice President & Chief of Staff for President’s Office: Gregory Rost
December 12, 2006, Volume 53, No. 15	Print Issue

Gregory S. Rost has been named Vice President and Chief of Staff for the Office of the President, President Amy Gutmann announced.

Mr. Rost is currently Chief of Staff for the President’s Office at Temple University and served eight years in the administration of former Philadelphia Mayor Edward G. Rendell, including three years as his Chief of Staff. 

Mr. Rost, who will join Penn December 18, will work closely with President Gutmann. He will fill the position recently vacated by Joann Mitchell   when she became vice president of institutional affairs (Almanac September 26, 2006). He will be a senior policy advisor on short- and long-term issues, working with the deans and senior administrators, the President’s Council, Senior Planning, the Capital Council, the Budget Steering Committee and the Real Estate Steering Committee.  He will also work closely with the Office of Government and Community Affairs on community issues and initiatives and with the Secretary’s Office on trustee and overseer issues and initiatives, and he will manage financial and administrative functions for the Office of the President.

“Greg is a proven leader who is especially adept at managing both the traditional and emerging issues confronting higher education today,” President Gutmann said.  “His experience as chief of staff to the former mayor of Philadelphia, as well as his demonstrated success overseeing a broad range of functions at Temple, make him an ideal candidate for this key position on my senior leadership team.  He is known to be a talented, forthright administrator and will be a tremendous asset to Penn.” 

Before entering Philadelphia city government, Mr. Rost was deputy director of Penn’s Fels Center of Government from 1989 to 1992.

He received an M.G.A. degree in 1989 from Penn, and he has been a doctoral candidate in government and politics at the University of Maryland College Park.