Working at the intersection of marketing, business, and contemporary culture, I connect people, art, and ideas through cultural strategy, that is, I leverage the power of the arts to bring people together, build community, and grow businesses. I developed my approach to brand-building and marketing-informed leadership over a 30+ year career that included leading cultural institutions, representing artists, producing events, doing PR, and working on account teams at several New York City marketing agencies and trade associations. Not only did I forge deep relationships with artists and producers, I built brands across the arts and culture, entertainment, technology, automotive, consumer electronics, and nonprofit sectors.
My Approach
My approach to brand-building and creating nonprofit resilience is simple: I build strong brands by helping organizations align their programs, community engagement, and outbound communications around core audiences to build relevance, loyalty, engagement, and revenue. Think of it as a virtuous circle:
Services
- Public programming: Development and execution of strategically aligned, public-facing events through a network of deep relationships with artists and cultural organizations
- Research: Quantitative and qualitative exploration that uncovers insights about your core audience(s) and communities
- Program analysis: Identification of gaps and opportunities in your organization’s offerings through the dual lens of mission alignment and audience relevance
- Community engagement: Identification of key influencers in your core communities and development of an approach to connect them to your organization
- Marketing: Development of an organization-specific communications plan and management of its execution.
- Funder relations: Leveraging relationships with the philanthropic community
- Strategic counsel: Partner with leaders to increase their effectiveness
- Strategic planning: Helping you develop your organization’s multi-year growth goals and a plan for reaching them
Further reading:
- An Overview: Building Arts Brands
- Define your targets: Building Arts Brands: First, Know Your Audience
- Do the work: Building Nonprofit Brands: Public Programs
- The importance of community (part 1): Be Biased Towards Community-Building
- The importance of community (part 2): You And What Army?
Why I’m Qualified to Help Your Organization
Most recently, I led the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling. Prior to that, I was the president and executive director of Weeksville Heritage Center from 2017-2021, and led that organization’s turnaround through exciting programming, aggressive marketing, and authentic and ongoing community engagement. My leadership culminated in Weeksville’s designation as the first new member of the NYC Cultural Institutions Group in over 20 years, and a 7-figure, multi-year grant from a major funder. Before leading arts organizations, I was the marketing director at a pre-eminent marketing trade association; a music publicist; an artist manager; an indie film producer and marketer; the publisher of an online cultural magazine that ran for a decade; and I produced and marketed cultural events. I started my career as a marketing account executive for WPP- and Dentsu-affiliated agencies that represented brands such as IBM, Burger King, Panasonic, American Honda, and Cadillac; and did freelance marketing consulting and partnership development for cultural organizations such as the Black Rock Coalition, the Caribbean Cultural Center, and the Urbanworld Film Festival.
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