Session – Arts Administration in a Global Context – Leadership, Diplomacy and Equity

Speaker
MA Performing Arts Administration, 2012
Founder/CEO, Sheffield Global Arts Management

For six years, Francine Sheffield traveled and performed around the world as a company member of Urban Bush Women. After earning her MA in Performing Arts Administration, Francine worked as an Artist Representative for Pentacle, where she booked engagements for emerging dance companies. In 2014, Francine founded Sheffield Global Arts Management where she offers exceptional artist representation and consulting services to a select group of established and emerging dance companies, with a focus on women and people of color. The company is now in partnership with Rhizome Arts Consulting. Francine serves on the board of the Association for Performing Arts Professionals (APAP), and is Co-Chair of the Agent, Managers, Producers and Promoters Council (AMPP) for Dance/USA. She has also served on Professional Development committees and Planning committees for the Western Arts Alliance (WAA), Arts Midwest (AMW) and APAP conferences.

Speaker
MA Performing Arts Administration, 2009
Director of Performing Arts, Korean Cultural Center New York

Hyo Han is the Director of Performing Arts at the Korean Cultural Center New York (KCCNY), a branch of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of the Republic of Korea, operating in New York at the Consulate General of Korea with a mission to bring the cultural contents of Korea in all of its diversities to New York and to stimulate cultural exchange between the US and Korea.
Hyo’s main work centers on bringing Korean performing arts works to New York not only by producing annual programming at the Cultural Center, but also by collaborating with arts and cultural institutions such as Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, BAM, 92Y, and many more. Over the past 9 years, Hyo has brought a wide array of performing arts genres to the stage including music, dance, theater, and Korean traditional performing arts to small clubs and large-scale venues alike, attracting hundreds of thousands of audience members to experience Korean culture firsthand. She has also founded KCCNY’s signature performing arts program, OPEN STAGE, which features an annual program of emerging and early-career Korean and Korean-American performing artists based in the US alongside living legends from Korea.

Moderator
CEO, International Society for the Performing Arts

David Baile is the Chief Executive Officer of the International Society for the Performing Arts (ISPA) based in New York. ISPA is an international network of more than 550 leaders in the performing arts from 56 countries. Since joining ISPA, he has significantly expanded both the diversity of the membership as well as the programs and in particular the leadership development initiatives.

Prior to joining ISPA in 2007, David enjoyed a 20 year career in the arts in Toronto in both executive and consulting roles and in a variety of disciplines including contemporary dance, theatre, literary arts and music. For the 7 years prior to ISPA, David was the General Manager of Opera Atelier, an internationally renowned company noted for its period productions of baroque opera.

In addition to his professional involvement in the arts, David is also very active with volunteer positions including past membership on the Mayor’s Round Table on Arts and Culture (Toronto) and Board positions at the Toronto Arts Council, and OPERA America. He is a Chief Executive Global Fellow of National Arts Strategies and currently serves on the Advisory Board for the Master of Arts Management Program at Carnegie Mellon University. He holds an Honours B.A. in Urban Development from the University of Western Ontario.

Speaker
MA Visual Arts Administration, 2008
Associate Director, International Funding, The Museum of Modern Art

Sylvia Renner has spent the past 18 years within some of the country’s most impactful media, political, and cultural organizations. She currently serves as the Associate Director of International Funding at The Museum of Modern Art, where she oversees the Museum’s strategy around international donor engagement. She also worked with MoMA’s International Program as a liaison between the Museum and international governmental, institutional, and scholarly networks. She has been at MoMA since 2007. Prior to that, she held positions in the office of Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr. as Legislative Research Assistant for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and at the New York Times News Service in Paris as International Sales Associate.

She has served as a member of the Visual Arts Administration Alumni Council at New York University, the executive board of the Alliance Française de Washington, and on the steering committee of The Phillips Collection Contemporaries. She holds a BA in International Communications and International Politics from the American University of Paris and an MA in Visual Arts Administration from NYU, where she completed a thesis on cultural democratization in postwar France.

Speaker
MA Visual Arts Administration, 2009
Artistic Director, Vienna Art Week and Founder ART&IDEA

Robert Punkenhofer is founding director of ART&IDEA, CEO/ Chief Curator of Vienna Art Week and co-owner of Carl Suchy & Söhne. In his work he crosses the limits of art, architecture, design and fashion as well as international business and diplomacy. He is responsible for more than 100 exhibitions and special projects on 3 continents, amongst others the visionary Mur Island with Vito Acconci for Graz European Capital of Culture, Vienna Art Week, Austria´s participation at the World Fairs in Aichi, Japan, Zaragossa, Spain and Shanghai, China as well as Flow Festival, the first open space for science and culture in the Danube region. He worked as Director of the Austrian Design Foundation, the Creative Industry Office at Austria´s Foreign Trade Organization as well as guest curator at Apex Art in New York and Goethe Institut Barcelona. He served as a member of the International Advisory Council at Princeton University/ PLAS and was visiting professor at New York University.