San Francisco Symphony CEO Mark Hanson and Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas. Photo by Stefan Cohen
“Mark Hanson’s budding symphonic career as a cellist took a sharp turn at 22 toward a path in nonprofit management,” writes Brian Rinker in Friday’s (2/21) San Francisco Business Times. “Now, at 45, he is the CEO of the San Francisco Symphony…. Hanson arrived in 2017…. Under his tenure, Hanson has helped engineer a financial turnaround and artistic resurgence. Q: How’s business? Hanson: Business is improving. Last season we balanced our budget for the first time in 10 years…. Q: How are you trying to engage with a younger audience? Hanson: … Our new collaborative artistic leadership team is thinking of new ways of bundling a mix of our beloved and new repertoire that include adding lighting effects and narrative and thematic threads. Q: What are some of the barriers you face as you move forward? Hanson: … Getting people more comfortable with change…. We are trying to … become a more diverse, inclusive, equitable organization…. There are some really important parts of our community who are underrepresented in the orchestra, in our audience, on staff and in the boardroom. We will become a much more vibrant, stronger, more interesting organization if we increase the racial diversity of those constituency groups.”
