Governance

Looking To The Past When Thinking About The Philly Orch-Kimmel Center Not-A-Merger

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On 6/17/21 The Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center announced the organizations were “uniting under a new parent company”. Before we dive too deep into the weeds, it’s worth noting that one of the key figures involved here is Anne Ewers, Kimmel Center president and CEO. If that name sounds familiar within the context of merges, you have a good memory because Ewers was the driving force behind the Utah Symphony and Opera …

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It Was The Best Of Times, It Was The Worst Of Times: Board Recruitment In The Age Of COVID

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Recruiting board members is a big enough challenge even when all things are equal. During a pandemic, it’s exponentially more challenging. If that weren’t enough, you can layer in all the equity and diversity considerations that keep nipping at the heels of performing arts orgs that they’ve been politely eyeing, but avoiding, for years. But I genuinely do believe this is a best of times scenario. Control and power sharing have …

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Rethinking The Data We Use To Motivate Board Members

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It’s no secret that board members are up to their eyeballs in rough news. While there’s no way to avoid it, that doesn’t mean we can’t play the hand we’re dealt and win. For instance, introducing data to keep them motivated and focused on longer term strategic thinking is a great way to pivot from traditional “how much” or “how big” type of reports. There are even opportunities for expanding their …

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Those Soft Landings Are A Sharp Double Edged Sword In Disguise

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Joe Patti published a fascinating piece based on something from Vu Le about the notion of soft landings for executive leaders. While I read Le’s post when it came, but I didn’t consider writing anything about it until seeing it through Patti’s lens. In a nutshell, the “soft landing” concept here applies to the way conservatives (yes, in the political sense) approach caring for executive leaders. Le provides a pretty succinct …

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There And Back Again, Performing Arts Edition

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“Overnight we went from being a producer of live performance events to a digital content provider.” Those words were from a colleague back in March around the time it became clear the pandemic was more than a few weeks of disrupted event activity. And while those words are uneasy, he was saving the really dark part for effect. “And we have no f**king idea how to do that.” Don’t worry, this …

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