LEADERSHIP PROFILE

Executive Director Center for Arts , GA

“The Center for Puppetry Arts’ mission is to inspire imagination, education and community through the global art of puppetry”.

– Center for Puppetry Arts mission statement

THE OPPORTUNITY As the largest organization dedicated to the art form of puppetry in the United States, the Center for Puppetry Arts serves as a hub for innovative performance and the preservation of the art form. Through its focus on performance, education and a museum dedicated to preserving the magic and legacy of the craft, the Center is committed to ensuring that puppetry thrives for current and future generations.

The Executive Director will serve as the Center’s President and chief executive officer and succeed a visionary founder who built the Center from an idea into an organization where creativity and commitment to the Center’s mission undergird both daily and long-term decision- making. This individual will be someone who will see the role as an inspired opportunity to lead, grow, and oversee an institution grounded in excellence and who embraces the calling of preserving, celebrating and advancing the tradition of the puppetry arts. The Executive Director will also fundamentally understand, harness, and channel the power of the arts to excite, educate, and drive cultural engagement and creativity – well beyond puppetry and immediate experiences at the Center.

84 Peachtree Street NW • Fourth Floor • Atlanta, GA 30303 • 404-262-7392

Finding leaders that matter for missions that matter. ®

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To reach its aspirations, the Center seeks a vibrant leader who brings strong business acumen, the energy to advocate and evangelize for the organization, and an authentic passion for the Center’s mission. Mandates for the new Executive Director will include:

• Investing in and developing the Center’s people and processes

• Raising the profile of the Center, including increasing organizational awareness, visibility, engagement and connectedness with audiences, local business, philanthropic, education, and civic stakeholders, the local, arts and culture community, and the national/international puppetry community

• Inspiring and growing the support necessary to sustain the Center as an incubator of talent and ideas, a preeminent leader of the art form and an engaging preservation and collection space

The opportunity for the Executive Director is both audacious and compelling: To help the Center grow its capabilities and capacity as one of the premier puppetry centers in the world and leading arts institutions in Atlanta. Through its performances, museum, and educational programming, the Executive Director will lead the organization into a new era of stability, visibility, artistic success, and audience engagement.

THE ORGANIZATION

The Center for Puppetry Arts was founded in 1978 by Vincent Anthony, a visionary and accomplished puppeteer, who saw Atlanta as an ideal home for his dream of creating a permanent center for performance, education and preservation of the art. The Center opened to the public in September of that year when and his creator, , cut the ceremonial ribbon and began a unique and special relationship with the Henson legacy that continues and is thriving today.

Unique among its peers, the Center has long been recognized for its comprehensive approach to serving audiences. The Center has enjoyed the support of nationally known leaders in the funding community including the Ford Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, the Shubert Foundation, and Atlanta’s own Woodruff Foundation among others. Accolades for its artistic accomplishments and impact are many. The Center received praise from Newsweek for being “one of the most exciting companies in American theater,” received the Microsoft Education Award in 2008 and has been awarded the UNIMA Citation of Excellence, puppetry’s highest award, thirteen times.

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The core of the Center is its vast programs and offerings which include:

⦁ Performances - Over 500 performances are presented annually in its two theaters. Its programming offers a diversity of shows for a host of ages. The Family Series features an average of 11 productions per year. Among this slate of shows are productions that are geared toward the very young, multilingual, and culturally diverse audiences. Its New Directions Series presents shows designed specifically for adult and teen audiences. Additionally, the Center presents a selection of its shows in a modified setting for individuals along the autism spectrum, where adjustments to sound, lights and setting are made to reduce sensory stimuli. The Center’s programming also includes a movie series with presentations that prominently feature .

⦁ Education – Educational offerings at the Center for Puppetry Arts are many and multi- faceted. At the core of educational programs of the Center are its performances for students in Atlanta’s public schools – for many, their first experience with a live theater event. Not only do performances engage the students and their imagination, but the workshops held in conjunction with performances empower students to become creators themselves. Additionally, the Center engages with the community through the Nancy Staub Puppetry Library; an online video library covering topics such as performance, design, story adaptation, and collaboration; customized workshops and professional development; Junior Explorer (which includes a camp) and Explore Puppetry Series (for audiences 18 and up). The Center’s digital learning program, a fixture of its offerings for almost 20 years, reaches global audiences in schools, libraries, children’s hospitals, Boys and Girls Clubs, and senior centers through cloud-based virtual field trips, online recorded content, and curriculum-based workshops.

⦁ Worlds of Puppetry Museum – The Center’s museum and special exhibits present puppets from various time periods and countries around the world. Central to the Center’s mission of engaging audiences in the joy and magic of the art form, exhibitions of puppets enhance understanding and appreciation of performances. The museum’s assets and collection are considerable. Puppets in the collection include Wayland Flower’s Madame, two of the masks created by for The Lion King and Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot from Mystery Science Theater 3000.

The Jim Henson Collection, which opened in 2015, houses hundreds of retired Muppets from , and , and is but one example of the unique relationship that the Center enjoys with the extraordinary work, contributions to the art form and timeless legacy of Jim Henson. Cultural icons such as Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, and Big Bird can be found in the collection. Special exhibits also enhance the museum experience. Past special exhibits have featured a variety of different areas including Indian Puppets: The Great Stories and Dancing Dolls and Jim Henson’s World of Myth and Magic. A new exhibit, Puppets in Advertising, will open in August 2020.

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The Center’s gift shop provides additional opportunities for families to memorialize the experience through product offerings related to the puppetry arts while generating meaningful revenue for the organization.

The Center for Puppetry Arts has a staff of 80 (37 of which are full-time) and an annual budget of approximately $4 million. Slightly more than half of revenues come from a combination of ticket sales, education activities, museum admissions and special events and the remainder from fundraising, grants and investment income. The Center has a modest endowment of approximately $2.5 million that helps to undergird annual and long-term operations. Current strategic goals include leveraging technology, board recruitment, and growing both earned and contributed revenue to ensure long-term financial stability.

For more information about the Center and its history, please go to www.puppet.org.

THE RESPONSIBILITIES

Reporting to the Board of Directors, the Executive Director is charged with the oversight, accountability, artistic and financial success and future vision of the Center. They will be an engaged leader who balances external advocacy and growing the visibility of the Center with a regular, day-to-day role collaborating with staff to lead the organization.

The new leader will build on an organizational culture where individual voices are heard, opinions are respected, people are empowered, and the Center’s values of inspiring every generation, cultural inclusion, artistic excellence, unlocking imagination and creativity, and believing in the people behind the puppets are embraced.

More specifically, the Executive Director will:

1. Work to support the art form and enable the artistic vision and productions to flourish. The Executive Director will lead the organization with a clear enthusiasm and appreciation for puppetry and an acute understanding of the Center’s role in celebrating, preserving, sharing, and advancing the art form.

2. Relentlessly pursue and achieve organizational goals and objectives and continue to lead the Center forward with vision and tenacity. The Executive Director will drive vision and strategy for the organization in tandem with the board in a way that challenges the Center to think boldly about its future. The new leader will have a high level of comfort with business analysis and strategy and driving ownership of plans by the board, staff and organizational stakeholders.

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The leader will work to ensure that targets and aspirations are clear and that progress against goals is measurable and consistently communicated to appropriate internal and external audiences. Further, the Executive Director will inspire confidence and excitement among current and potential funders about the Center and future opportunities and initiatives.

3. Be the external face of the Center and its most public champion. The Executive Director will be the internal and external face of the Center and its most public advocate. The new leader will be gifted at connecting with members of the business, civic, philanthropic, puppetry, and artistic and cultural communities and with all generations of current and prospective supporters. The new leader will enthusiastically share the joy of puppetry and the uniqueness of the Center that defines the organization, its work, and its people.

4. Pursue both practical and innovative strategies to grow fundraising and earned revenue to sustain the Center long into the future. The Executive Director will be uncommonly good at building relationships and inspiring support for the mission. The new leader will bring a proven track record of success in cultivating and securing significant support and will grow and diversify the donor base and sources of earned and contributed revenue.

5. Develop and invest in the staff, building depth that will ensure that the Center remains a hub of excellence and guardian of the art form. The Executive Director will lead the organization with purpose, commitment, and an authentic attention to the organization’s unique culture. They will find ways to nurture and develop the staff and support investing in the growth of the Center’s people. They will be able to develop the skills that the Center staff need to perform their responsibilities and then empower the staff to do their jobs. Given the Center’s role as a leader in the field, the Executive Director will explore ways to incubate the next generation of puppetry talent and attract the resources necessary to help sustain the Center and the art form.

THE CANDIDATE

The ideal candidate is a creative, courageous, committed, and capable leader who is comfortable with the role of internally and externally leading the Center. Communication, interpersonal, fundraising, and strategic planning skills are essential, as is facility with balancing mission and margin.

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Experience in working with similarly complex professional organizations (ideally in the museum, arts and culture industry) and adapting this experience to the scale, resources and mission of the Center will be highly valued. The Executive Director will bring a sense of humor, soft charisma, a natural ability to collaborate, energy and enthusiasm, high emotional intelligence, and an authentic enthusiasm for the power and magic of puppetry.

Leadership attributes being sought in the new Executive Director include:

• A profound calling to serve, advance and preserve the art form and the organizational legacy • Passion for the mission of the Center • A strong track record of success in externally representing an organization and being its face in the community • A genuine excitement about fostering new relationships and cultivating support; a natural networker • Significant senior-level executive experience with profit and loss accountability, ideally in a dynamic cultural environment • Knowledge of the performing arts, museum, and/or presenting cultural or educational programs would be a material asset • Facility in working with nonprofit boards and growing them in tandem with organizational needs and priorities • Material experience and demonstrated ability in leading organizational planning around vision and strategy • Experience with earned revenue generation and a spirit of innovation, creativity and urgency in finding ways to ensure the long-term sustainability of the Center • An understanding for the importance of tradition and how to balance it appropriately with progress • A growth mentality that focuses on developing the organization, it’s people, artistic product, educational offerings, business, supporters, and audiences • A team builder and collaborator with experience working with a large, diverse workforce • An openness that inspires trust, empowerment, invites collaboration, and engenders an environment of teamwork and accountability

THE RELATIONSHIPS

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THE LOCATION

Reports to • Center for Puppetry Arts Board of Directors Direct Management • Development Director • Marketing Director • Distance Learning Director • Ticket Sales Director • Accounting Manager • Producer • Education Director • Museum Director • Administrative Director • Assistant to the Executive Director Has other key relationships • Local, regional, national and global leaders in the puppetry including: arts community (UNIMA, Puppeteers of America) • Peers and colleagues in the local and regional arts and culture community • Donors and supporters of the Center • The Board of Directors • Educators and leaders in the public and private school systems • Civic, foundation and philanthropic leadership The Center for Puppetry Arts is in the heart of , which is home to over 20,000 residents, 65,000 workers, and 6 million annual visitors. It is the epicenter of Atlanta’s arts and cultural community hosting, in addition the Center, the (composed of the award-winning , , and Atlanta Symphony), Atlanta Botanical Gardens, and the Savannah College of Art & Design. It is also a major business hub where most of the city’s leading law firms and financial institutions are located. Major corporate residents include Invesco, Google, NCR, AT&T and Norfolk Southern.

With over 6 million residents, Atlanta is the country’s 9th largest metropolitan area. It is the commercial and cultural center of and the Southeastern United States. Some of the world’s largest companies are headquartered in the city, including The Coca-Cola Company, UPS, Delta Airlines, and Home Depot which provide major financial support to the city’s arts and cultural institutions. Atlanta is also the entertainment industry capital of the South hosting major record labels and movie production companies including Tyler Perry and Pinewood studios. It features a thriving spiritual community, award-winning restaurants and chefs, and recreation and entertainment offerings of every kind rivaling those of any city in North America.

For more information please visit https://www.atlanta.net/

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For potential consideration or to suggest a prospect for the next Executive Director for the Center for Puppetry Arts, please email [email protected] or call Diane Westmore or John Sparrow at 404-262-7392.