Thomas M. Reardon, a key figure in the University’s largest-ever fundraising drive, announced yesterday that he is stepping down after seven years as vice president for alumni affairs and development.

University President Lawrence H. Summers has appointed Donella M. Rapier, associate dean for external relations and chief financial officer at Harvard Business School (HBS), to fill Reardon’s position.

With Rapier’s appointment, Summers has deepened his mark on the University’s administration. In a little over two years in office, he has now appointed four out of his five vice presidents, with only Vice President for Administration Sally H. Zeckhauser remaining from the previous administration. He also has already appointed or is in the process of appointing deans for half of the University’s ten schools.

Rapier’s selection comes as the University begins to consider how to raise the billions of dollars that will be needed to build a new campus in Allston, and as it works to increase the efficiency of its fundraising apparatus.

Rapier said in an interview yesterday that a top priority will be to determine whether Harvard is capable of launching another University-wide campaign in the near future.

Reardon shepherded a $2.6 billion campaign to completion in 1999, and a number of Harvard’s schools are in the middle of massive fundraising drives. But with the prospect of developing hundreds of acres across the river and with ambitious financial aid goals, Summers’ administration has been discussing a return to the campaign trail.

Rapier will also work to address issues raised in a report by consulting firm McKinsey & Co, that argued that the University’s different parts weren’t working cohesively enough on fundraising.

“We’re trying to bring the groups of fundraisers across the University together, we’re going to explore ways we all might be working together,” Rapier said.

Rapier, who has helped HBS raise over $360 million in its ongoing capital campaign, said that a more centralized fundraising effort should benefit all of Harvard’s schools.

“The plan is to grow the pie, not to say ‘You get a smaller slice, we get a bigger slice.’ The whole pie expands,” Rapier said.

In an interview last week, Summers said Harvard also should work harder to solicit large, institution-shaping mega-donations, a category in which it has fallen behind other Universities. While the University continues to rank as one of the top fundraisers in higher education, its largest ever gift—$70.5 million from the Loeb family in 1995—was surpassed by 62 other gifts on the Chronicle of Higher Education’s all-time donation list.

Summers said that the ranking was not alarming because the University has not tried to solicit especially large donations in the past, but added that it may soon change its strategy.

“As we look towards whenever the University has its next campaign, the area of very large gifts, which is not an area where Harvard has traditionally been as focused as some other universities, will certainly be a major priority,” Summers said.

Just this summer, Harvard made some movement in this direction, as it shared with MIT a $100 million donation to fund a life science center.

Reardon, who could not be reached for comment last night, has worked on development at Harvard since he arrived in 1975, first as a fundraiser for the Kennedy School of Government and later in the University Development Office.

“It has been a privilege to serve Harvard in this role,” Reardon said in a press release yesterday.

Reardon, will now serve as a senior adviser to the president.

“My father, brother and son have been Harvard alumni, and I’ve been here 22 years,” Reardon told The Crimson upon his 1996 appointment. “So I would say I’m an alumnus in spirit if not an actual son of the University.”

—Staff writer Jenifer L. Steinhardt can be reached at steinhar@fas.harvard.edu.