Lesley Rosenthal Appointed Chief Operating Officer and Corporate Secretary at Juilliard

NEW YORK –– Juilliard announces the appointment of Lesley Rosenthal as chief operating officer and corporate secretary, a position created for her by incoming president Damian Woetzel. Her appointment begins July 9, 2018. She will oversee business areas within the institution including finance and strategic planning, facilities, operations, and more. 

President Damian Woetzel said, “Lesley brings to us a passion for making the arts a vital and vibrant part of our world, and I look forward to her joining us in creating the next chapter for Juilliard.”

“Arts and education mean the world to me,” Ms. Rosenthal said, “and I am so excited by the opportunity to join a terrific senior team at the world’s leading conservatory under Damian Woetzel’s leadership. I look forward to applying my business and nonprofit experience toward a bright future for the performing arts.”

Ms. Rosenthal comes to Juilliard from Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts where she has been the executive vice president, general counsel and secretary and has participated broadly in the management of the world’s leading performing arts center for the last 13 years.  Katherine Farley, chair of Lincoln Center’s board, said, “Lesley will bring tremendous intelligence, business sense, and warmth to Juilliard and the next generation of artists and arts leaders, as she has to Lincoln Center. We are thrilled she will remain on campus, helping to further strengthen the arts and education from this expanded new role at one of our resident organizations.”

Steeped in the culture of higher education, Ms. Rosenthal has lectured at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton as well as in Europe and Asia on nonprofit management and governance. She has invented and taught cutting-edge courses on nonprofits and the rule of law at Harvard, Georgetown, and University of Miami. She has also co-taught the Artists and Contracts course at Juilliard. Her book, Good Counsel: Meeting the Legal Needs of Nonprofits, is used widely as a textbook and a practitioners’ resource.

Ms. Rosenthal holds a JD from Harvard Law School and a bachelor’s in philosophy, magna cum laude, from Harvard College. She was elected by alumni to serve on the Harvard University Board of Overseers, which exerts broad influence over strategic directions, priorities, and plans.  She serves on its executive and audit committees and she chairs the arts and humanities committee.

While in private practice at Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison, Ms. Rosenthal crafted winning strategies for clients in media, arts, entertainment, real estate, and financial sectors. Active in professional associations, she launched successful and durable diversity initiatives at the New York State Bar Association. She is president of the New York Bar Foundation and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

About The Juilliard School

Founded in 1905, The Juilliard School is a world leader in performing arts education. Juilliard’s mission is to provide the highest caliber of artistic education for gifted musicians, dancers, and actors from around the world so that they may achieve their fullest potential as artists, leaders, and global citizens.

Located at Lincoln Center in New York City, Juilliard offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in dance, drama (acting and playwriting), and music (classical, jazz, historical performance, and vocal arts). Currently more than 800 artists from 40 states and 38 countries are enrolled at Juilliard, where they appear in more than 700 annual performances in the school’s five theaters; at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully and David Geffen halls and at Carnegie Hall; as well as other venues around New York City, the country, and the world. Beyond its New York campus, Juilliard is defining new directions in global performing arts education for a range of learners and enthusiasts through The Tianjin Juilliard School and K-12 educational curricula.

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