Rachel Malkenhorst is a seasoned Development Director who has arrived at Los Angeles Ballet most recently from the University of Southern California where she oversaw a $75 million dollar campaign as Assistant Dean of Advancement for the School of Architecture. This campaign was a part of $1 billion dollar University effort, which was the largest goal of any Institution of Higher Education at the time of its launch in 2012. Rachel had been recruited to USC from her position as Director of Development for the School of Architecture at Tulane University, in New Orleans, where she strategized and launched a $75 million dollar capital campaign.

Arriving at Los Angeles Ballet has brought Rachel back to her roots in the theatre. A classically trained actress, Rachel was once the co-owner and Co-Artistic Director of the multi-award winning, and critically-acclaimed Relentless Theatre Company. Rachel trained at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco and went on to an apprenticeship at La Jolla Playhouse, where she worked with Tony-Award winning directors, Des McAnuff and Michael Greif. She then returned to her hometown of Los Angeles to perform with A Noise Within and Nosotros Theatre Co., among others before launching her own theatre company.

A lover of all things L.A., Rachel decided to pursue a tandem career in historic and cultural conservation and so studied Architectural Preservation at USC. She then became the Executive Director of the City of Vernon’s Historic Preservation Society where her largest project there was the restoration of a 1930s, art-deco, Zig-Zag Moderne Power Plant which became the Vernon Working Museum of Energy. A graduate of Woodbury University, Rachel returned to her Alma Mater for her MBA – it was here that she truly began her career in fund-raising, starting in Annual Fund and Development Communications and working her way up to Major Gifts Officer for the arts school there.