The New Generation of Arts Leaders

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Christopher Williams: Hi gang, it’s Christopher Williams. Over my 30+ years working in the arts, I’ve had the enormous privilege of collaborating with so many remarkable arts leaders and advocates. And over the last decade I have observed a significant shift as a new generation of inspiring and determined individuals begin moving into leadership positions, and they’re challenging traditional notions about the management of cultural organizations. So it got me thinking, what does this new wave of arts leaders see as the future of our industry? And what can their fresh perspectives teach us about leadership? In today’s episode, I’ll sit down with three individuals who, in my eyes, represent this new generation of arts leadership: bold, passionate, and driven to move our industry forward. You’ll hear from Rachel Hagemeier, President and CEO of the Canton Symphony Orchestra; Monica Holt, Senior Vice President of Artistic Planning and Production at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; and my boss, CI’s own President, Priya Iyer Doshi. We’ll talk about the generational shifts in leadership styles, how they stay true to their creative visions while navigating the complexities of people management, and the changes they hope to see in their respective arts communities and the industry at large. Our conversations left me feeling so incredibly optimistic and excited for the future of our field. So buckle up. It’s going to be a good one.

Rachel Hagemeier, welcome to CI to Eye.

Rachel Hagemeier: Thank you. Very excited to be here today.

Christopher Williams: So you have such an interesting story and before we get to what I feel like is the headline of your story, I would love for you to just tell us what drew you to the arts as a young person.

Rachel Hagemeier: So I grew up in the world of bluegrass. My dad’s a bluegrass musician, so I grew up with that all around me all the time. And when I was probably 10 or so, I was at the Walnut Valley Bluegrass Festival in Winfield, Kansas where I still go every year. And there was a woman named Nicolasa Kuster who is a bassoonist. And so she was jamming around a campfire with everyone else playing bassoon at a bluegrass festival. And I said, “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” and told my dad I’m going to play that. And he said, okay, sure. He had no idea what a bassoon was. And so then I started playing music and being a bassoonist and doing all the youth symphony things and started attending orchestra and I got a performance degree, but I never wanted to be a performer. I loved to play, but I didn’t want it to become my job. And so that’s where I really fell into arts administration as a thing I wanted to do. So it’s always been around me and I still try to play as much as I can and all that good stuff, but it’s a comfort. It’s like a home space for me. So…

Christopher Williams: Yeah. How did you decide that you didn’t want performance to be your job?

Rachel Hagemeier: So I saw the people who made it happen. I saw the executive director of my youth symphony and all the hard work that he was doing, and I saw the people who were doing ticket sales, and just realizing how many people it takes to make the arts happen. And I think it’s so fulfilling to be able to make this stuff happen and to think about the longevity of the arts. I mean, I want to be able to say that by the end of my career, I’ve impacted how orchestras are going to be able to survive in the future, and think about it that way so that our amazing musicians can continue to do what they do.

Christopher Williams: One of my biggest hopes in my own career is to just have a world where many more young people know that there is a career track and its name is Arts Administration. And perhaps we can both relate to this in the same way that our exposure—I identify as a Midwesterner, being from southwest Missouri—and my exposure to the arts is much different than a lot of people who I’m around today. And I never knew that this was something that you could do for a living. Do you feel like that’s still something we have a lot of work to do in as an industry?

Rachel Hagemeier: Yes. Oh, for sure. In the past, I guess, Covid years and now the couple years after, a lot more programs have been appearing. We’ve seen a lot more master’s levels programs appearing that have the title Arts Administration. Now I think where we still have a lot of work to do is that within those programs, what are the actual skills that we’re teaching? What are the hard skills that we’re teaching? And I also think that the understanding of business is, I think, something that we still need to work on about how important it is to understand that arts organizations are a business and have a product, and you might have nonprofit in your title, but you have to make money.

Christopher Williams: Nonprofit is a tax status.

Rachel Hagemeier: Yes, nonprofit is a tax status. It is not the act of not making money. It’s so incredibly crucial. And so working with our schools of business to really lift up the arts through a nonprofit lens and understanding that, I think, still has some work to be done. But it’s lovely to see more programs popping up. We need good arts professionals in the field right now. We really do.

Christopher Williams: We really, really, really do. You were promoted to CEO when you were 25 years old, which is incredible. And it made you the youngest CEO in Canton Symphony’s history. And my first reaction before I even ask my question is just like, I am dying to sort of hear how that happened because in a lot of ways I’m like, wow, who are the other leaders in the organization and the board that made this possible? I think it’s awesome.

Rachel Hagemeier: Yeah, that meme of Paul Rudd going, “Who would’ve thought? Look at us. Who would’ve thought? Not me.” For a long time I was like, I have no business being here. What is going on? I also felt that when I started as Manager of Education, though. They hired me right out of school and I was so scared about my age and was so… When I was 21, I was like, oh, no one’s going to take me seriously. And then every colleague in the field was like, why are you worried about this? Maybe someone will make a comment, maybe someone will, but that’s not someone who’s going to be a good collaborator or colleague anyway, so you do your job and see what happens. And if it does become an issue, then we’ll address it. Don’t assume it’s going to be an issue. And so I kind of had that feeling when I became CEO.

I was still very surprised at the whole thing. I did not think it was going to happen, but I was ready to do the next thing. I had been Manager of Education and I was ready to do something else. I felt like I’d really learned what I could do, and I saw there was no way for me to move up at the Canton Symphony. There’s only so many people. And there’s not upward mobility. So I was looking for jobs and I had a job offer and the day I was going to tell our CEO at the time that I was going to take that job, she announced she was leaving the same day. And I went, okay, let’s just take a beat really quick. What hurt does it do to throw my hat in the ring? And so I went to our CEO and I said, I would be interested in maybe throwing my hat in the ring for this position. What’s the timeline? What is the board thinking? And she said to me very surprisingly, well, the board is thinking about making you interim. And I was like…

Christopher Williams: Wow.

Rachel Hagemeier: …really? Okay. I was very flattered by that. I have good relationships with our board members. I knew them. I guess the quality of my work had showed to them with what I’d been able to do with the community engagement and educational programming. And then I was a little bit ballsy and I said, I don’t want to take something that’s not necessarily a guarantee. I would love to take this position, but only if I’m not interim. And they offered it to me and it was very surprising and I didn’t quite know what to do with it. And it was very, very scary and I was stressed out of my mind.

Christopher Williams: Being 25 at the time, what was the biggest challenge and what is also the biggest benefit to your youth at the time or even now?

Rachel Hagemeier: So to my point earlier of people bringing up my age now, a lot of people, they’re just surprised that I’m young. They’re not put off by it. I have had donors come up to me and say, I was skeptical at first, but now I’m fine. And I think it’s just: do your job. If you do your job and do it well, the age thing is not going to be a big deal. It doesn’t matter. And so I think it serves me well because people see the freshness. A lot of people say the organization feels like it has a fresh perspective. Our board is a fairly young board now. We’ve brought on board members that are close to my age and they feel comfortable joining a board. Because I’m the leader, it’s less intimidating because there’s someone their age. So there’s a lot of pros and cons for sure. Cons is that I don’t have as much experience, and so I’m having to read a lot of stuff and learn a lot of things, but it’s fun.

Christopher Williams: Yeah. Well, you mentioned this, you worked as—before being CEO, you worked as the manager of education and community engagement at the Canton Symphony. What was that transition like for you when you transitioned from sort of the day to day weeds work and community engagement that one does in a position like that to your executive job now?

Rachel Hagemeier: Yeah, it’s interesting. I think that we’re a small arts organization, and so everyone is boots on the ground a lot of the time with everything. The biggest shift for me was that it was hard for me to not be the one doing every little thing all of the time. And I think the biggest thing is to learn to trust your staff and know that they know what they’re doing. I think that I’m so incredibly lucky at the Canton Symphony that we have a staff where we’ve gotten to a place, it didn’t happen overnight, but we’ve gotten to a place where we know how to communicate with each other. I know that I can trust them to do their jobs, but I started working with a leadership coach who really helped me understand you have your way of operating as a human, the way that you want to talk to people, the way that you want to communicate with people, and so does everyone else.

And the best thing that you can do as a manager is take the time to get to know every single employee and what that means for them, because you’re going to have to shift the way you have a conversation about failure depending on which employee you’re talking to. You can’t talk about it in the way that necessarily you would. And so it’s very incredibly helpful to have those tools in your toolbox. Suddenly people started feeling more comfortable to say, I don’t like it when you do this, or I really need you to help me with this.

Christopher Williams: Did you have a natural curiosity to want to make some of these changes? Really realizing, oh, I do need to understand how everyone ticks in order to iterate myself amongst my staff. Did you come to that naturally or was that work for you?

Rachel Hagemeier: Yes, and. I think that when I first started as CEO, I was so concerned about a few things. One, I needed to get people to buy into me as a leader as fast as humanly possible. I’m the youngest person in the office. I know what I’m doing. I need to convince them that I do know what I’m doing, but I don’t know everything. And I need to be able to assert myself as a boss and as someone with a vision, but also so that when I ask questions, it’s not, it’s because of curiosity and wanting to be better at my own job. And so I really quickly wanted to get to know the staff. I wanted the staff to feel safe at the organization. And then we had a rough spring of 2023. Lots of change. People were angry, they were stressed, they were burnt out.

The schedule was just back-to-back concerts. Everyone was burnt out. And I was like, this is bad. I have to figure out something. And so I kind of was forced into realizing, oh, you need to be way more intentional with this. You can’t just assume that because you knew these people before you were their boss, that you know them now. The relationship is very different, and you need to get to know them on a how they tick, how they need to be managed, how do they like to communicate? You need to get to know them at that level. It’s not easy, but it definitely is worth it when you’re able to really rally a team together at the end.

Christopher Williams: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I couldn’t agree more. Have you had a situation where you feel convicted about something or the way you have culturally decided to handle it or decided through your own values to handle it, and in those moments, the world is saying, “No, Rachel, we do it this way” and you have to sort of push-pull in those moments and decide, am I going to traverse my own values and do it their way or am I going to stick to my guns? And then felt very conflicted after that?

Rachel Hagemeier: Yeah. Oh, so many.

Christopher Williams: I figured.

Rachel Hagemeier: I got so much advice about how to be a CEO.

Christopher Williams: That’s exactly what I wanted you to answer.

Rachel Hagemeier: And so much of it was really good advice. A lot of really, really good advice. And some of it, I got it and I went, what? Are you kidding me? That’s how we do things? And it was everything I didn’t want from my boss that they were telling me to do. I got a piece of advice that said, and there’s a bit of truth in this, but there’s a big old caveat, where you can’t be friends with your employees.

Christopher Williams: Oh God, yes. This is a classic one.

Rachel Hagemeier: You can’t be friends with your employees. And what they mean is you need to be able to create defined and agreed upon lines of professionalism while at work that if they need to come down, everyone understands why they’re coming down and that we’ve shifted into a different mode. That’s what that means. That doesn’t mean you can’t be friends with your employees. I’m very much friends with my employees.

Christopher Williams: Nuance.

Rachel Hagemeier: We go to karaoke often, but my relationship is different with them because I do need to have a wall up so that if I need to make a hard decision, I make the hard decision. But understanding that is so key. And when I got that piece of advice, I was shocked. And then I didn’t know how to actually deal with it, and the lines were blurred, and it got really messy and I almost became not friends with my employees because of it.

And so that was a really interesting one to navigate. I had to stumble into figuring out what to do there. Union negotiations were really weird. A lot of people said, don’t show the finances to the musicians. Don’t do it. Don’t show the finances to the musicians. Then they’re going to ask too many questions. They’re going to know too much. They’re going to ask too much of you. I was like, that feels really counterintuitive. I feel like if they knew the finances, then they would understand why I can’t give them that thing. I would be able to explain it to them and they would be in it with me and understand, this is where we’re really at. So I brought our auditor in and our auditor went through the entire financial audit with them, and at the end, they changed so much of what they asked for, and I was like… But I held off doing that for nine months of negotiations. And I’m like, if I’d just done that from the beginning, we would’ve gotten somewhere so much quicker. And now it’s like, okay, now we’re here. So yes, all the time. All the time. And it’s really hard to know when maybe your conviction is a little misplaced and you need to reevaluate it versus when the gut is right, the system is wrong. It’s tricky.

Christopher Williams: The gut’s the key, right?

Rachel Hagemeier: It is the key.

Christopher Williams: Your gut is almost always going to lead you to the right decisions. I think leaders often learn that. You make the decision you think you’re supposed to make and your gut is flipping over and going inside out, and then you realize six months later it was the wrong choice and you’re like, I should have listened to my gut. So, think about the other managers of education and outreach who are out there right now. And thinking about those folks who want to move into leadership positions, what would you say to them?

Rachel Hagemeier: Yeah, I think that this is a field that you have so much room to play with, and there’s so many different things happening in the field of arts administration and honestly, our field right now needs younger people, needs younger people to come in with all these fresh ideas and to think about things differently. So get to know your local orchestra. Go talk to those people, do an informational interview. They’ll be so excited. Oh my gosh. They’ll be so excited that someone wants to know about their job. They will. Go shadow for a day. Just get to know the organization. I did tons of informational interviews. It was my favorite. I just called people and talk to them. I still do it.

Christopher Williams: I love them! People love to do them.

Rachel Hagemeier: I still do. And people love it. Oh, people love talking about themselves. People love it. I love talking to young people. I’ve convinced now three people to go into arts administration. We’re trying to tick it up higher, but we’re working on it. We’re working on it.

Christopher Williams: Okay. Rachel, you have reached what we call the CI to Eye moment. If you could broadcast one message to executive directors, leadership teams, staff, and boards of a thousand arts organizations, what would it be?

Rachel Hagemeier: Thank you for all the work that you do. This is a really hard field. Being a CEO can be incredibly lonely. So boards: look after your CEOs. They need the support. And the more verbal you are with it, the better. And with that, verbally celebrating the fact that we get to do what we do. We’re very lucky that we get to make art happen. We are very lucky that we get to witness amazing creators all the time and to remind ourselves that when it is really hard, when we look at the field and we’re like, the funding is going away. All of the grants, we don’t even qualify for them anymore. All the United Arts funds are disappearing. What are we going to do? Art is resilient, and we are resilient, and we will come up with ways to navigate this if we remind ourselves and celebrate each other and lift each other up. Because the more we celebrate publicly and say things out loud, the more communities are going to want to be a part of that celebration, want to be a part of this amazing stuff we’ve got going on. And it’s hard work and thanks for doing it with us.

Christopher Williams: Well, Rachel, I am a fan. This has been such an enjoyable time spent for me. I cannot wait to see what you do for the field over the course of your career. And I thank you so much for spending time with us today.

Rachel Hagemeier: Thank you. This was wonderful. I am so happy to talk about this topic. And yeah, it’s been a really fun little afternoon here with you guys.

Christopher Williams: Monica Holt, welcome and welcome back to CI to Eye.

Monica Holt: Thank you so much. I’m happy to be back. It’s been a minute.

Christopher Williams: Monica, we’re aging. I think the last time you were on the podcast was 2017, right?

Monica Holt: I was just a young lady trying to make her way in the wild streets of nonprofit arts administration.

Christopher Williams: I too was a young lady. Well, this episode is all about leadership, but before we get into that, for people who maybe don’t know who you are, can you start by just talking about what brought you to the arts in the first place?

Monica Holt: Oh, sure. I am very lucky and fortunate to have grown up in a household where the arts were part of every day. Music, going to shows in D.C. … I grew up just outside of D.C. so even in my youth, I was going to shows at all of the local theaters. So I was very fortunate to have a family that was entrenched in the arts, and that was with me the whole time as I grew up. And I think I didn’t really understand what a career in the arts meant outside of being a performer until pretty late in college. And at that point I realized I had kind of always been on this marketing, advertising, branding track in school. Ultimately, I ended up looking at mostly marketing and branding jobs and internships. And at Washington National Opera, I was able to get an internship there, and then my first professional career position, I would say, as New Media Coordinator. And ultimately it was the right timing that led me to Washington National Opera because the Kennedy Center affiliated in 2011. So I was brought over onto the marketing team here. And so that accelerated my journey to a larger performing arts center.

Christopher Williams: I’m going to go back to this idea that there are hundreds of us, thousands of us, who have been band geeks or choir geeks or theater geeks in high school. Maybe you’re not the most talented person, so you’re not going to actually act or sing or play, but how can you still participate in the arts as a career? And I still think and believe strongly that we don’t do a good job of helping people understand you can take that interest and that actually can be an administrative career for you that’s quite stable and quite rewarding. Do you feel like we still have work to do there?

Monica Holt: I completely agree. There are so many components and pieces, both desk jobs and labor positions, that contribute to what brings them joy and entertainment when they see it on stage or on screen. And it’s so important to see some of these projects and goals of what’s possible because we’re missing a lot of imagination and a lot of thought in our space for folks who just don’t even know these positions exist. And I think it’s a little more—probably becoming more legible on the marketing side, but we have a robust finance team at the Kennedy Center, and our VP of Financial Planning has played piano her entire life. And that’s what led her here is, it was her professional skillset and her personal passions, interests. And I don’t think we show those stories.

Christopher Williams: Yeah, it’s a topic I feel very strongly about, and I think those of us who are here need to get our megaphones out and do some labor. And sometimes I feel proud of the progress that happens, but I then feel like it’s restricted only to very expensive degree programs. And I don’t think that’s—in fact, I’m evidence that that’s not the only way in. And I just feel very strongly that we have to give more voice to that. Anyway, jumping back to where you sort of ended your story about how you got to the arts. First of all, tell everyone what you do today at the Kennedy Center.

Monica Holt: Sure. I work as the Senior Vice President of Artistic Planning and Production at the Kennedy Center. So that is the role today, but obviously very different than where I started.

Christopher Williams: And so for people who don’t know you and are listening, one of the reasons why I wanted you to talk about what you do now is because that journey is just, it’s very uncommon and so interesting. And there’s a couple of things that I think are notable. One is just making the jump from marketing to the programming side is fairly unusual in our industry. What I think is also uncommon about your journey for your generation, not to stereotype a generation, is that you have spent all of this time inside of one organization, and that’s pretty unusual these days. So can we start there and hear how you made the hard decisions maybe over the years to take different positions within the Kennedy Center and actually stay there, which I think is amazing.

Monica Holt: Yes, it is. I think I have now officially outlasted all of my friends from college in the career game of who can stay at their first place of employment the longest. So, going back a beat to Washington National Opera… So my role there, I was New Media Coordinator. And having the word ‘new’ in your title, it gave me a lot of freedom and grace as to how I wanted to accomplish the goals that were being set for me. That was a very empowering experience, not just in my confidence, but also in confirming the importance of taking on new challenges and educating yourself to try something new if you think it is something that will be important to you on your career path. So the Kennedy Center affiliated in 2011, so I was brought over onto the marketing team here. And then from there, the first decision that I had to make career-wise was as some roles opened up on the marketing strategy side as opposed to the advertising side, deciding if that was the right opportunity to seize.

And the way I saw it was, yes, it was certainly an opportunity to grow in my career, but again, it was also a new skillset for me to learn. And over time, the department changed a bit, our organizational leadership was changing, and I ended up in a role as the director of marketing for the center at a time when we needed to be building out more of a marketing team. And when I had moved into the manager role, the first year was the first time I had ever hired anyone, and we were kind of both on training wheels at the same time. In the way that I talk about it, she was learning how to do her first job. I was learning how to manage someone.

Christopher Williams: This is such a good point for me to ask you, what were the questions you were asking yourself about what does it mean to be a manager, not just of an area, but also now I have to be a manager of a person? Because I think I now witness a newer generation of individuals who really feel hesitant to want to do that. And I’m trying to do this podcast series in a way to say, you know what? None of us really knew the answers either. So what were you thinking?

Monica Holt: No, none of us knew the answers.

Christopher Williams: Right? You learn it.

Monica Holt: None of us knew the answers. I was, again, excited for a challenge, but also terrified because it’s not just the responsibility and a drive to be successful, but it’s also, it’s another human being, right? It’s another heartbeat. And I think if we all take a beat and think, okay, at the end of a tough day at work, if you go home and talk to your partner or a friend or a parent on the phone, you’re going to be talking about some of the characters you work with. And probably at some point over the course of a week, a month, a year, you’re going to be talking about your boss. Who do you want to be in those stories? You can’t be the hero all the time. And to be honest, you also have to make peace with, even if you do everything that is aligned with your values and what you feel a leader should be accomplishing in a role as a manager, you might still be the villain. And you have to be able to let go of control. Because you don’t have it.

Christopher Williams: A hundred percent.

Monica Holt: And it’s not your right to have any control over that, but you have to be able to go home at night, acknowledge that you might have an outsized impact on an individual or group of individuals’ days, weeks, months, years, and be able to make peace with yourself. And I think that is what terrified me about it. The other thing that I could have used more of is leaders willing to talk about their struggles.

Christopher Williams: A hundred percent.

Monica Holt: And their excitement. And sometimes it feels like we’ve gotten so fixed on what makes a good leader, that we’re not having the conversation about all of the questions and doubts and experiences that leaders are having that might be uncomfortable to share because it’s not necessarily the most beautiful reflection.

Christopher Williams: The compounding value of making mistakes and learning from ’em. And I think the sharing of those mistakes is so key to helping a newer generation of folks go like, okay, great. They screwed it up. I probably will screw it up. That makes this feel a little bit more accessible to me. But to your point, talking about what is amazing about leading a group of people and the feelings you get when you watch people grow exponentially and even depart your organization and go on to do other amazing things… Like, god, is there anything better than that feeling?

Monica Holt: Yeah, I feel so strongly about that. And the ability to watch the people around you grow and rise is what can make leadership so rewarding. The leaders I am most admiring of, understand that they are playing a long game and understand that they might not be there at the finish line.

I think it also depends on the situation. So at that time, building a team, I will say I did have more instant gratification than not. But I think transitioning from that group that was really in a quickly growing posture to the role that I’m in now, which is more about how are you evolving together? It’s very different and the excitement is different, the challenges are different. And in the spirit of sharing struggles and excitement, I think when you watch a team that then also has their own teams that they work with and a very distinct portfolio, to then be trying to operate between all of those teams, it can feel more isolating than I was expecting, particularly at first.

Christopher Williams: Yeah, I think a lot of leaders would say you ultimately end up sitting kind of alone in those spaces. And for a lot of people, no one ever said that. That was a surprise. In a lot of ways, when you are part of a greater ensemble in your organization, that community can be such an awesome experience, but at a certain point you do give some of that up in order to wear the crown and provide leadership in a different way. And I think a lot of people get surprised.

Monica Holt: And it’s being responsible for the decision that might not be everyone’s favorite choice in the short term. And there are moments where you have to reckon with the fact that it’s on you, and it’s not something that is a decision by jury. And I’m someone who loves to get input and ask advice and dialogue on so many things, and sometimes it’s on you to make sure that you have gotten the information you need, but then to ultimately…

Christopher Williams: You have to decide and be accountable.

Monica Holt: …make a choice and be accountable for it. And I think one thing that has really struck me is this idea of are you making bets or are you making investments? I think that is such a succinct way of demonstrating the fork in the road that a lot of people find themselves in in any job but particularly in leadership roles. Am I going to make a decision based on the pressures of the moment that might have a short-term impact, or am I going to make a decision that might be harder, that might require more resources upfront, because I am looking at the long-term trajectory of the division, the organization, or the field? There are a lot of bets that would be really fun to take, but when I look back, when I am beyond this career, I want to feel like I have made decisions that have led the organization to be in a better place than it was than when I was in it. And so that in 10 or 20 years, the organization is having a greater impact because of some seeds that I was able to plant when I was there.

Christopher Williams: It is sort of said that 10% of people are born to lead, 20% can learn it, and the rest of us just shouldn’t do it at all. My snap judgment about you, which I’ve made many, many, many years ago, is that you were born for this. I’ll tell you why. I’ve always felt that when I spend time with you, I feel very safe and I feel unique and that you see me and connect really deeply with me. And in my mind I’m always like, oh, that’s an us thing. And then when I was prepping for this podcast, I was like, oh, you know what? That might be how everyone feels when they work with her. That might be a unique thing that she does as a leader that maybe a lot of people feel that.

Monica Holt: That is a very kind and generous thing for you to share. Respectfully, I’m not sure.

Christopher Williams: I expected a response like that.

Monica Holt: I’m not sure I agree that people are born to or can be educated to or are not able to become leaders… for a few reasons. One is that leadership is about context, ultimately. I could have a leadership approach here that when I go three blocks down the road in D.C. everyone’s like, what are you doing? So one is just the context of it. Leadership isn’t a monolith. So what do we really mean when we say someone’s born to be a leader? And then, is everyone given not just the tools or opportunity to discover whether they might be a good leader, but is everyone empowered and encouraged and trusted to believe that they can be? I think anyone who shows a willingness or an interest in learning about leadership can become a good leader. I think that to me is the barrier for entry. So that was a really long-winded way of saying thank you. And also I disagree with it.

Christopher Williams: It’s very wise. I like it. We talked about this earlier. It feels like external factors on us would say it’s important for my career to leave and go do something else. It won’t look good on paper. Have you had to answer those questions for yourself?

Monica Holt: Absolutely. I would say frequently it’s something that I think about. And I think the things that have kept me here are, one, a true belief in the center’s mission and ability to deliver on its mission, a love of what we are growing and building here. And that changes every few years, to be frank. I’m not staying here now for the same reasons I was staying here seven years ago. I think that’s important. It’s a refreshed commitment and responsibility, and I really enjoy the people that I work with here. Even in moments of disagreement, there is kindness. And even when we are disagreeing, I still believe that everyone’s perspective is coming from a place of believing it is the right thing for the institution and the people it is serving. That feels like something that I want to hold onto and keep uplifting. And most of all, I believe that arts are a critical part of everyone’s life. We know there is data and science that proves the importance of arts, culture, humanities, and people’s mental health and physical wellbeing, and how wonderful to work for an organization that also believes in that and wants to make arts available to every person in the country and around the world.

Christopher Williams: Great. Picture young people who have chosen to work in the arts, specifically the folks that are maybe not in the best circumstances, maybe they’re in an arts organization that is struggling financially which is not a small number these days. What do you say to all young people, but specifically the people who are listening this podcast who are clinging to information that will help them stay the course?

Monica Holt: So you can pretty quickly spin yourself out thinking, what am I going to do next? Why isn’t this person doing Y? Why isn’t that person doing X? And how is this organization ever going to move into the future if… if… if? But I think you need to give yourself the grace to focus on building the best version of yourself in this space because only someone who is cemented in their values and cemented in their ability to be continuously learning and contributing can then really start to move forward and make change in the space with others over time. But if you have a belief in this field and it’s feeling hopeless, then take a minute to recenter on yourself first.

Christopher Williams: That’s great advice. Okay. We’ve reached your CI to Eye moment. If you could broadcast one message to executive directors, leadership teams, staff, and boards of a thousand arts organizations, what would it be?

Monica Holt: I think it would be a call to action or a call to participation for how we reinvent the business model with the focus being that leadership’s role is to be taking care of the staff of that organization. And I think sometimes it’s easy to skip that piece and say, leadership’s role is to make sure that we are presenting the best artists on our stages or having the most inclusive spaces in the country on our site. That is the organization’s goal. How is leadership empowering and uplifting the staff that needs to deliver on that mission? And I think what the reading between the lines there is has to do with staffing, resourcing, and compensation. And I think that our industry was built in a way that a lot of nonprofits are, on the hopes and dreams and beliefs of their youngest staff carrying them through a compensation scheme that was never meant to be on equal footing to the corporate world. And I think we’re going to see more and more over time that grace and belief in mission, vision, and values isn’t going to overcome the need for resources. It’s not the sexiest call to action, but it’s what I think we need.

Christopher Williams: I love it. I consider myself called to action. Monica Holt…

Monica Holt: Let’s do it.

Christopher Williams: Thank so much for being here.

Monica Holt: Thank you, Christopher. Thank you CI!

Christopher Williams: Hi, Priya.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Hi, Christopher.

Christopher Williams: Welcome back to the pod.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Oh my god, thanks. It’s nice to be on this side.

Christopher Williams: I can’t say the standard sort of welcome to CI to Eye. You’ve been here several times and kind of live here.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Yeah, I live here inside of CI to Eye.

Christopher Williams: So for people who… I think a lot of people have had some exposure to your story, but before we get into talking about leadership, tell me again for the cheap seats in the back, how did you get here to the arts?

Priya Iyer Doshi: Yeah. No, the arts have been just such a huge part of my life from such a young age. I grew up dancing classical South Indian dance, and I also grew up dancing more on the Western side of things. So ballet, tap, jazz, modern. I was very interested in the dance world, and that was just a big part of my intro to the arts. And I grew up singing too. And so I sort of moved my way into Western singing as well, as I grew up, as I went into elementary and middle school and people around me were not participating in South Indian classical art forms, but they were participating in musical theater. And so I found my way there and went to school for musical theater, and I thought I wanted to be a star on the Broadway stage. But halfway through college, I sort of realized that the life of a musical theater performer probably was not going to be satisfying for me, so I pivoted.

But I knew that I wanted to stay in the arts because I really felt like art is a universal way to connect with people, and I wanted to be a part of making that a bigger impact in the world. So that’s how I found my way to the administrative side and then the marketing side of the arts. So I started my career on Broadway, but on the marketing side. In those first years, it really did feel like I was living the dream. I went to the Tony Awards, and I was at a Broadway opening night, and it was just so sparkly and so exciting. Then over time, I started to feel like, okay, Broadway is very focused on the show that’s going to make the most amount of money, and I came here to find stories that were important that could have an impact on people’s lives, and I wanted to find work that could support more of that.

So that’s how I found the nonprofit side, and that’s actually how I found Capacity. And I made my way in, and that was back in 2016. And then sort of out of nowhere, a job offer from San Diego showed up in my lap. And I’m a big believer in signs from the universe, and I wondered if maybe the universe was telling me I needed to try something new. And that was also sort of a test to see do I need the arts to be in my career? The test failed. I do need the arts to be in my career. And so while I was sort of having those thoughts and wondering what I might do with them, Mr. Erik Gensler gave me a call and asked me to come back, and we all took a leap of faith. And three years later, here we are.

Christopher Williams: Here we are.

Priya Iyer Doshi: I know, it’s crazy. It’s crazy.

Christopher Williams: When you knew that perhaps being a performer on the Broadway was not necessarily in the cards for you, how were you aware that there was an administrative path that you could take? Did someone within the university system make you aware of that? Were you always aware that that was a choice you could make?

Priya Iyer Doshi: I definitely was not always aware, but I did go to a theater school, so I went to Ithaca College and I was in the musical theater track, but I was surrounded by people who were in different theater-related tracks. And some of them I knew about, some of them were much more of the costume side or the prop side of things or lighting. Those pieces I felt closer to because those were closer physically to the stage. But that was the first time that I really got exposed to company management, general management, the actual business side, marketing, development, all of those pieces. So yeah, I think I got lucky that that exposure was all around me once I got to college. But before that, not on my radar at all.

Christopher Williams: I’m so eager to still continue to shine so much light on this subject. And I still think it’s so important that we tell people, young people, that this is a path you can take. And it’s an important one because it’s hard for performers to stand on a stage or for art to hang on the walls of a museum without an administrative staff selling tickets, raising money, et cetera. It all works together. Listeners may or may not know, Priya is my boss, and so as we continue to let our conversation unfold, I just want everyone to have full perspective into our conversation. Priya, are you willing to let listeners have some idea of where you sit generationally?

Priya Iyer Doshi: Oh, sure. Yes. I am 33 years old, so I sit squarely in the millennial generation. Go millennials.

Christopher Williams: Thank you for sharing that. Again, the point of this particular episode is to really shine a very bright light on this crop of amazing individuals who are sitting in leadership roles in arts organizations who are not Gen X or Boomer or Silent Generation. No shade on any of those people. I am in one of those groups. But it’s so exciting to me in my career, which is now in its fourth decade, it is so exciting to see new leadership styles and different ways that people are doing things. So tell me two things. What were the things that great leaders did that you were like, ah, damn, when I’m in the chair, I’m going to do it like that, or take on that component of that person. And then conversely, what were the things that you saw that you were like, hell no, not going to happen on my watch.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Okay, so great leaders listen. I feel very deeply for this one because I think when you’re a brand new person to the workforce and you have a leader who is invested in listening to the experience that you’re having and allowing their support, management, guidance to be driven by what they’re hearing from you, it makes all the difference in the world. I think on the flip side, what I’ve watched happen that then I didn’t want to do is I’ve watched new managers—for the sake of perfectionism or hyper achievement—micromanage or only accept one approach of doing things. And we are all human beings with all of these different component parts inside us. And I think replicating something in a one-to-one way when it’s a completely different person now executing the work is an unrealistic expectation. And to be on the receiving end can be so incredibly demoralizing, and I think it makes you feel like the strengths that maybe you once had confidence in are no longer applicable. So I think that can become a really dangerous cycle.

Christopher Williams: A hundred percent. When I listen to you talk about that, one of the things that I immediately think of is just—especially in the arts, which is still so predominantly white, which is a big problem for us—part of… I’m air quoting for people who can’t see me… Part of doing things the right way or the way it’s always been done has also meant doing things the “white way.” I know you have a lot to say about that, and I know that I have learned a lot from you about this and still continue to do so, but I think it’s such an important topic.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Yeah, I think the thing that’s hard about this is that it doesn’t necessarily take somebody explicitly saying, you have to present like this, or you have to show up like this on a client call. It doesn’t take just those explicit statements for somebody to read between the lines and pick up on what it means to be successful in a certain place at a certain time. And I think for me, when I joined Capacity, and even now, it’s a predominantly white team, and I was taking my cues from more senior people around me, all of whom were predominantly white. And I think it can feel alienating, but without anybody saying “your authentic self needs to sound like that.” Without anybody saying any of that. It was things that were as simple as… I remember super early on, I was on a call with a client and the client mispronounced my name, and I sort of went to correct it, but the person leading the call just sort of moved forward with the call.

So then I was like, okay, let’s move forward the call. No big deal. And then that call was an hour long and throughout the entire call, my name was mispronounced. Yeah, I was PRY-uh. Yeah. And once you get past the first five minutes, it’s too late. What am I going to say? Hey, by the way, 55 minutes ago you said my name was Pry-uh, and you’ve been saying it subsequently that way since, and I now 55 minutes into the call I’m going to correct you. It’s like, oh god. So I just didn’t, but I think I also just watched the other people in the room not, and those types of things then become additional disruptions that we have to work through in an office setting of any type. And so I think that’s what takes me back to this idea that representation matters, not just because you want to see other people who are successful, who look like you, but also because all of these little things that happen throughout the day when the room is more diverse, those things become more normalized. So then I don’t have to think twice about, “Actually, can I just interrupt you? I just want to make it clear it’s pronounced Priya, because if I don’t tell you now, I can’t tell you ever.”

So anyway…

Christopher Williams: What would you say to say to the average 24 or 25-year-old who is sitting in their first or second more junior role inside of an arts organization, which is unfortunately likely very white. What would you say to those folks who are listening to that story and they’re like, “Yep.”

Priya Iyer Doshi: I will first say that you might not wake up every day wanting to do what I’m going to suggest that you do, and that’s okay. It feels like a great deal of responsibility to represent something not only for yourself, but for all of those who come behind you, and some days that just feels incredibly exhausting, and that is okay. But what I would say in that is that I think it’s easy to make a lot of assumptions, as I did, about what the definition of success is. And I would urge people to ask more specific questions about the expectation and definition of success instead of solely relying on context clues in an environment that perhaps has not historically had people like you in it or people like you in great volumes in it. I would venture to say that sometimes when you ask the direct question, the answer is actually the opposite of the assumption, but you never know until you ask. I wish I had just asked, “Hey, would it have been okay for me or you to interrupt the client and let them know that that happened?”

Christopher Williams: God, isn’t asking questions just such a universal solution to so many of our problems? You and I just had a conversation about asking questions yesterday.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Yes, we did.

Christopher Williams: This is a thing that not only can be helpful to you in the beginning of your career, it’s maybe even more important as you get further on. And you do not have to know. In fact, often you do not know.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Yeah, a thousand percent. A thousand percent.

Christopher Williams: I’m writing that on a Post-It note for myself.

Priya Iyer Doshi: I know.

Christopher Williams: So you were on a podcast episode on CI to Eye in 2022 when you first came back to Capacity to be our President, and on that episode you specifically talked about ruinous empathy. Where are we now on the journey?

Priya Iyer Doshi: Yeah, yeah. So ruinous empathy comes from this concept of radical candor, which is the idea that if you care personally, you can challenge directly. And ruinous empathy essentially is that you care personally and are unable to challenge directly. You care too personally to be able to challenge directly. So super early in my time here, and a big part of coming into the role was managing people who had previously essentially managed me. I’m looking at one of them right now in the face, Mr. Christopher Williams. And so I think as I came in early on, I had spent a lot of time on the care personally piece, and I wanted to do a lot of listening, especially with the leadership team, to sort of understand the lay of the land. Many people on our leadership team have been here for 10 years plus at this point. And so I really wanted to listen and understand what each person was feeling about the now, the past, what they’re hopeful for in the future, those types of things. But I think that I early on didn’t feel like I had the right to challenge directly. But now having spent more time in the role, having understood the business more, having worked alongside this team more, we’re all collectively working towards the same thing, right? We’re all just doing our part, working towards the same thing. And when I was able to internalize that shared goal, it became more about if the feedback’s not given, then there isn’t an opportunity for us to get to that goal in the same way. It remains a barrier.

Christopher Williams: This sort of topic generally came up with the other two guests in the episode. This idea that folks who make their way into upper leadership positions earlier in their careers will find themselves having to manage individuals not only who are younger than they are, but [it’s] harder managing those who may have multiple decades on them. And that’s also true for you. What would you say to folks who are listening to this about what that journey is like and what you’ve learned, or what you’re still learning?

Priya Iyer Doshi: One thing that I’ve learned is that the experience of others does not negate the experience and expertise of myself. I think I used to think of it that way. I’ll use you as an example because you’re sitting right here. It’s been, did you say, four decades?

Christopher Williams: I’m in the fourth.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Yeah, there you go. In the workforce. I am not in the fourth decade in the workforce, but that doesn’t mean that if I have a piece of feedback for you or if we are collaborating, it doesn’t mean that my decades mean nothing to you, and that my perspective means nothing to you. And it took me a little while to internalize that, but so long as we can still have the level of caring personally, and the closeness, and the ability to challenge directly and have these big picture strategic conversations… And for me, we’re all just humans at the end of the day, working together. And age doesn’t really change that. Every stage of your life, that’s all you’re doing. You’re just a human being doing the best that you can, which I think universalizes it.

Christopher Williams: Yeah, I sort of envision right now the sort of archetype of an arts admin, someone who is so happy to be at their arts organization and is working really hard because that’s what we do in the arts, and maybe they see their executive director or artistic director walking up and down the hallway and they think to themselves, that’s the job I want to do. So as a young leader in the arts, what have you seen or what do you see as the biggest challenge to being a young leader in the arts? And conversely, what’s a really big benefit?

Priya Iyer Doshi: Yeah. Well, I think that the challenge, I just touched on. You cannot control how other people assign or don’t assign value to age. You just can’t. But what can be hard is to not let that knock me off balance a little bit. To not let the voices in my head show up and sort of say like, “Yeah, you are so young. What are you doing? What are you doing in this meeting? Why are you the one here doing this?” But I also think that it sometimes means that we try new things and we take some different risks, and the perspective is informed by the future. Right now, I’m considered a young president, but not too long from now, it’s going to just all be my generation. And the way of the workplace is shifting and the audiences coming into arts and cultural institutions, those are shifting.

And in some ways I feel like I have an edge because I’m here now. I have the power that I have that comes with this seat and I can offer a perspective that does also inform where things are going to go and it might seem like we’re not quite there yet, or it’s kind of new or it’s kind of green, or “you’ve got to learn that that’s not going to work for yourself.” Those are the types of things that I might hear, but that’s not always true. And oftentimes the spaghetti does stick to the wall and we get to try something new and my fresh perspective allows some of that to happen and that is the benefit.

Christopher Williams: Shall we do a CI to Eye moment within the context of this topic?

Priya Iyer Doshi: Sure.

Christopher Williams: If you could broadcast one message to executive directors, leadership teams, staff, and boards of a thousand arts organizations, what would it be?

Priya Iyer Doshi: It would be that the importance of listening cannot be understated, and I really do believe that part of why the arts are so powerful is because they offer the opportunity to see new, different, diverse stories show up in front of us. And as we listen more, we build empathy and openness to what that then can allow us to do and can allow future leaders to do. So the power of listening cannot be understated.

Christopher Williams: Well said. You’re an inspiration to me, Priya, and I’m sure to others listening to this episode.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Thank you, Christopher.

Christopher Williams: Thanks, boss. We’ll see you back at our desks.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Okay, sounds great.

Christopher Williams: Bye.

Priya Iyer Doshi: Bye.

Dan Titmuss: Hello everyone, it’s me, Dan here, back with another round of CI-lebrity Sightings. CI… ‘lebrity… like celebrity. I’ll stop explaining it. Here are some of our favorite news stories featuring CI clients in 60 seconds or less. First up, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s music director Nathalie Stutzmann was featured on WSBTV for making history as only the second woman to lead a major American orchestra. Way to go, Nathalie! Next, Ballet BC just received the largest donation in its 37-year history, which according to Stir Magazine will go toward full-year contracts and salary increases for its dancers. And finally, a number of our friends in the Bay Area were mentioned in the New York Times—heard of it?—in an article entitled “San Francisco’s Arts Institutions Are Slowly Building Back,” which name drops American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco Opera, San Francisco Symphony, and SF MoMA. We’re so proud of these clients for their landmark accomplishments and tireless commitments to moving their art forms forward. Got a story that deserves a shout out? Well, tag us on social and let us know.

Dan Titmuss: Thank you for listening to CI to Eye. This episode was edited and produced by Karen McConarty and co-written by Karen McConarty and myself, Dan Titmuss. Stephanie Medina and Jess Berube are CI to Eye’s designers and video editors, and all work together to create CI’s digital content. Our music is by whoisuzo. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please take a moment to rate us or leave a review. A nice comment goes a long way in helping other people discover CI to Eye and hear from experts in the arts and beyond. If you didn’t enjoy today’s episode, pass it on to all of your enemies. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok for regular content to help you market smarter. You can also sign up for our newsletter at capacityinteractive.com so you never miss an update. And if you haven’t already, please click the subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, stay nerdy.