Executive Director, International Festival of Arts and Ideas
This listing describes an executive leadership role overseeing a major nonprofit arts festival in New Haven. The position focuses on guiding strategic vision, managing operations and partnerships, and advancing community engagement through multidisciplinary programming that brings together artists, thinkers, and local audiences.
Requirements
Key Requirements
- Demonstrated senior leadership experience in a nonprofit, arts, or mission-driven organization, with the ability to lead through complexity and change
- Strong fundraising expertise, including donor relations and major gift cultivation, with a proven track record of results
- Exceptional communication and relationship-building skills, able to engage diverse communities, partners, funders, artists, staff, and Board members
- Nonprofit governance and organizational leadership experience, including working closely with a Board and aligning staff around shared priorities
- Fiscal and strategic acumen, with the ability to understand and steward budgets, revenues, and seasonal presenting models
- Visionary and inclusive leadership style, grounded in integrity, adaptability, and a growth mindset
- Experience representing an organization externally, with confidence, warmth, and credibility at the local, national, and global levels
- Ability to unify creative vision, operational strategy, and organizational culture while guiding the Festival through transition and renewal
Description
The International Festival of Arts and Ideas is seeking an Executive Director who can provide visionary and strategic leadership and engage with a wide variety of people in powerful and compelling ways. We need someone who is self-realized as a leader and can make decisions efficiently, confidently, and clearly from experience with complex real-life situations. You must be an exceptional communicator and relationship-builder who can design and articulate a bold and inclusive vision, engage people across sectors and communities, and represent the Festival with warmth, credibility, and confidence. We are looking for someone who can take risks thoughtfully, honoring what has made the Festival strong while helping us let go of past approaches when needed. You should lead with adaptability, integrity, and a dynamic growth mindset, build trust across staff and Board, align people around shared priorities, and guide the organization through transition and renewal while keeping people motivated, focused, and supported.We need demonstrated leadership experience in unifying creative work, fiscal understanding and strategy, and organizational vibrancy with diverse teams; a track record of results-oriented success in donor relations and major gift cultivation; an expansive national and global mindset; and nonprofit governance and structural expertise. Your primary areas of focus must be fundraising and external representation, structural understanding of seasonal presenting, and guiding alignment and coordination across staff and Board. This includes setting and driving strategic direction, understanding festival systems (budgets, revenues, timelines), and taking personal responsibility for organizational communication that is open, two-way, people-centered, and grounded in transparency and shared stewardship.
Preferred app deadline is March 9
