Arts Executive

Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY
MBA/Arts: Marketing, Not-For-Profit Management

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Bachelor of Science: Psychology, Communications, Visual and Performing Arts, Marketing

Arts and Public Space Consultant
Self Employed, New York, NY

2018 – now

Independent collaborator with artists, arts organizations, city agencies, park steward groups, neighborhood consortia, and community centers to help shape, design, manage, and execute arts programs in public spaces; assemble budgets and establish relationships with funders and municipal departments; broaden and deepen marketing, curation, and community engagement plans; determine logistics, space, and amenity considerations and opportunities; and instruct arts producing strategic planning, operations, management, and procedures.

Policy and Management:
• Launch OpenCultureWORKS and negotiate with city officials to improve and ensure success of New York City Council’s Open Culture initiative:
• Implement Open Culture launch events with five borough partners and create guide to producing arts outdoors for artists and organizations;
• Originate Green Arts Live grant with other arts institutions led by City Parks Foundation awarding over $200,000 to over 40 arts groups;
• Focus on community building through the arts by co-founding Moving Culture Projects and reorient City Parks Foundation’s Green Arts Live grant;
• Manage Green Arts Live and mentor park group grantees in underserved and underresourced areas through the performing arts presenting process, and empower them to strategize how to mold ideas into happenings, pursue hyper-local partnering and marketing, expand audiences, capitalize on their spaces in new ways, determine success and how to learn from failures, and establish the arts as an essential park amenity.

Logistics, Production, and Operations:
• Devise Open Boulevards Performance Series with NYC DOT and the Rockwell Group, and produce 15 multidisciplinary festivals on open streets;
• Mount over 45 Green Arts Live events, 15 showcases by City Artist Corps grantees, and 30 arts organization events in parks, plazas, and streets;
• Construct new venue for Queens Theatre’s outdoor summer series in Flushing Meadows Corona Park and inaugurate operations protocols.

Director of Events
Bryant Park Corporation and 34th Street Partnership, New York, NY

1999 – 2018

Chief of events and member of leadership team for two award-winning Business Improvement Districts that share offices and personnel, and develop innovative processes in public-private urban space management, funding, programming and staffing, and operate three parks for the City of New York: Bryant Park, a model of revitalization and activation, and Herald and Greeley Squares.

Special Events and Rentals:
• Programmed, coordinated, planned, and stewarded hundreds of corporate, not-for-profit, arts, film shoot, and special event uses of the parks;
• Boosted rental income and sponsorship up to $4 million annually and systemized park events with policies, rules, operations, and contracts;
• Partnered with NYC Mayor’s Office, Parks, and other agencies, negotiated agreements, and aided the formation of NYC DOT’s plaza program.

Operations:
• Shaped dozens of site-specific public art projects with artists, galleries, Public Art Fund, Art Production Fund, Creative Time, and NYCParks;
• Introduced new park space configurations for programs and public use, and managed park personnel and operations before/during/after events;
• Collaborated daily with capital, security, sanitation, design, horticulture, and sponsorship departments to form short/long term action plans;
• Determined best practices for public, attendees, production, and artists, improving event design and schedule, logistics, equipment, and park flow;
• Envisioned and oversaw design, build, events, and daily operations of $10 million winter project: a free admission rink and holiday artisan market.

Leadership and Program Development:
• Built strategies for year-round programming and budgeting, operations, marketing, promotion, engagement, sponsorship, and development;
• Expanded and led team planning for each season’s presentations, budgets, production, operations, brochures, public relations, and promotion;
• Introduced independent curator and producer program, and revamped and refined arts and culture offerings, increasing attendance over 10 fold;
• Art directed season identity and promotion and developed marketing collateral and signs with graphics team;
• Overhauled budgets and tracking, and grew partnerships with national corporations, sponsors, producers, arts groups, and municipal agencies;
• Conceived and produced a new NYC holiday celebration on ice with live bands, storytelling, fireworks, and Olympic skaters;
• Showcased NYC’s fall arts season drawing 40,000 over two weeks annually at Bryant Park Fall Festival, highlighted by talks from distinguished artists, and classical, jazz, opera, and dance performances by collaborators including The Metropolitan Opera, Ailey II, City Winery, BAM, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Ballet Hispanico, New York Philharmonic, Parsons Dance, New York City Ballet, Joyce Theater, among others;
• Pioneered Bryant Park to become a respected arts venue and producer by spearheading Bryant Park Presents as an entrepreneurial start-up to develop and nurture new traditions and attract hundreds of artists and over 50,000 attendees annually to: social dancing with dance instruction and live bands; staged Shakespeare plays; intimate accordion concerts throughout the park and an accordion band festival; emerging and established contemporary dance events; world-class groups playing recent jazz and classical music; and one-night-only NYC Opera shows.

Executive Director
Binghamton Summer Music Festival, Binghamton, NY

1995 – 1997

Leader of Southern Tier of New York’s summer presenter of premier classical, world, jazz, dance, family, and pop music artists, attended by over 40,000 each year, and held primarily at Binghamton University’s indoor/outdoor Anderson Center and in regional parks.

• Curated programs, and oversaw performance operations and over 200 arts center staff, seasonal workers, consultants, and volunteers;
• Diversified offerings with annual series of free shows in parks, symphony at downtown AA baseball stadium, and children and adult workshops;
• Attracted new funding and sponsors, and strengthened long-term partnerships with university, businesses, media, agents, and non-profits;
• Developed marketing, production, protocols, front of house and evaluation strategies, and conceived and wrote award-winning brochures;
• Co-founded First Night Binghamton and represented area arts at regional and national conferences, seminars, and events.

• Writing
• Proofreading and editing
• Collaborating
• Problem Solving
• Troubleshooting
• Communicating
• Listening
• Negotiating
• Designing
• Leading
• Introducing
• Innovating
• Evaluating
• Budgeting and managing finances
• Marketing and promoting
• Managing time and resources
• Analyzing operations
• Event production
• Reporting
• Presenting
• Curiosity
• Motivating
• Adaptability
• Reliability
• Entrepreneurial thinking
• Mentoring
• Supervising
• Training
• Crisis managing
• Experimenting
• Resolving conflict
• Organizing
• Processing
• Extrapolating
• Forecasting
• Researching and investigating

Arts and culture, Community Engagement, Creative placemaking, Curating and working with artists and curators, Program development and implementation, public art, Public space, Sponsorship management, Strengthening partnerships, Systems creation and evaluation, Tactical urbanism, Team building and management

English