Executive Director

POSITION: Executive Director
REPORTS TO: Board of Directors
WORK SCHEDULE: Full Time Permanent
EXEMPT STATUS: FLSA Exempt
COMPENSATION & BENEFITS: $130,000-$150,000 + health care, retirement plan, and paid time off. 

POSITION OBJECTIVES

The Industry is seeking a leader with exceptional vision and experience to build on the successful incubation of the new models for artistic innovation. The company now needs the executive, strategic, and organizational leadership to support the continued development of these models. The new Executive Director will be asked to:

  • Evolve a project-based company into an organization with more frequent and regular programming.
  • Broaden and increase the funding base.
  • Expand definitions of the operatic form as well as the contexts in which it is performed/experienced.
  • Broaden and increase audiences.
  • Test new models for the interconnected work of equitable organizational building and programmatic expansion.
  • Build a platform where diverse artistic voices can emerge. 
  • Manifest a strategic vision and lead efforts to fund it.
  • Assess organizational needs and build infrastructure in order to support artistic projects. 

SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

  • Strong leadership skills with at least 5 years of experience running a similar arts organization. 
  • Proven experience in fundraising, in particular success with individual donors. 
  • Proven track record in financial and strategic planning.
  • Proven ability to work effectively in collaborative environments. 
  • Knowledge of LA and the local funding community.
  • A passion for new, experimental opera, music, and performance. 
  • Proficiency in public speaking and ability to represent the organization in civic contexts. 
  • Experience creating and negotiating artistic contracts is a plus.

RESPONSIBILITIES

  • Oversee administration of The Industry, including artist negotiations and contracts, management of staff and contractors, legal and compliance matters. 
  • With the Board of Directors and artistic leadership, develop a long-term resource strategy.
  • Serve as principal development strategist, including but not limited to creating and implementing yearly development strategy for operating expenses, as well as fundraising campaigns as defined by artistic projects; planning and overseeing individual donor strategies; directing and managing the contracted proposal writer. 
  • Strategize and oversee communications / marketing of the productions and programs to a regional, national, and international audience. 
  • Direct community relations to ensure the company maintains the best possible relationships with other arts organizations, the city of Los Angeles, and the neighborhoods where performances take place.
  • Oversee the company’s finances, including reporting and analysis, budget preparation and management, and report to the Board. Manage the company bookkeeper and all bookkeeping activities.  
  • Serve as chief administrative liaison to the Board of Directors, including reporting at all Board meetings and as necessary all Board Committee meetings; working closely with the Board Chair to manage individual board engagement and involvement; attending quarterly Board meetings, additional “deep dive” meetings, and periodic committee meetings; working with Board members in strategic board recruitment, cultivation, and management.
  • Oversee the successful implementation of each production with the relevant Artistic Director and the Production Director. Envision project development and production with the Production Director and Artistic Director Cooperative. Oversee the contractual negotiations with vendors and partners involved in The Industry’s projects in cooperation with The Industry’s legal team and Production Director.

HOW TO APPLY

Applications will close at 11:59pm on March 1, 2023.

Using the subject line “Application for Executive Director,” please email jobs@theindustryla.org with 1) a current resume, 2) names and contact info for three references, and 3) a cover letter that addresses:

  1. Your experience cultivating individual donors in the arts (or other) sector. 
  2. Your experience operating effectively in highly collaborative environments.
  3. Your other skills and/or experiences that most align with the “Position Objectives” for the incoming Executive Director.

The Industry recruits, employs, trains, contracts, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, national origin, documentation status, disability, veteran status, marital status, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other basis prohibited by federal, state, or local law. Women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people are strongly urged to apply.

The Industry is committed to the ongoing process of becoming an anti-racist organization. We pledge to do the continuous work of understanding our own complicity in upholding injustice and finding meaningful actions for change within our programs, organization, community, and field. The Industry seeks to hire people who are similarly committed to their own anti-racist work, as well as furthering the anti-racist work of the organization. 

ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION

The Industry is an experimental opera company that expands the operatic form. It brings together interdisciplinary artists to create collaborative experiments that engage the cultural landscape of Los Angeles, and presents opera as a living form that responds to new perspectives and voices in contemporary culture.

ARTISTIC VISION

Since its founding in 2010 by Yuval Sharon, The Industry has led the operatic, multidisciplinary, and public art fields by developing singular performance experiences in unexpected places. The goal is to show opera as a living form that builds on but is not bound to reproduce traditional venues, stories, or canons. The Industry creates original projects that connect deeply to the diverse civic life of Los Angeles. Our holistic approach to creation integrates artistic ideas, production, audience experience, and civic and community engagement. The company’s flexibility, responsiveness, adaptability, and prioritization of ideas enables its work to break boundaries and thrive in new territory. The Industry values experimentation, collaboration, and boldness.  

The Industry experiments with form, including that of the role of Artistic Director. In an evolution of the company, the company recently instituted a cooperative model, made up of three artistic directors: Yuval Sharon, Ash Fure, and Malik Gaines. The cooperative preserves the vision and expertise of these distinct artists, while allowing for collaborative work to broaden perspectives and approaches to governance, programming, musical sensibilities, and care for the organization and its communities.

ORGANIZATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE

In the last 12 years, The Industry has established its ability to produce large-scale original productions that gain national critical acclaim. Its operations, fundraising and marketing campaigns have largely centered around large, high-profile productions that occur every few years. Its current annual operating budget fluctuates around $800,000, which can increase significantly in years with large productions. With the advent of a cooperative artistic director model, The Industry is moving to a diversified model that includes some smaller, more frequent productions, as well as labs for incubating new performance pieces, while continuing the large-scale productions for which it is known. This new model requires building new organizational infrastructure, including developing strategies for cultivating, soliciting and stewarding donors; audience development; and determining an appropriate schedule and scale of programming. The Executive Director will lead the organization’s efforts in all of these areas. 

The organization has a 10-member board, which is staffed by the Executive Director. Over the next period, the Executive Director with the board Nominating & Governance Committee, will participate in charting a plan to grow the board strategically in order to allow for increased integration into Los Angeles’s civic and cultural life and to augment its ability to secure financial resources for The Industry’s productions. 

The Executive Director manages one full-time Production Director, three part-time Co-Artistic Directors, and independent contractors in the areas of finance, grant writing and reporting, front of house operations, and communications and p.r. The Executive Director will develop plans to grow staff in keeping with organizational needs.