San Francisco Ballet

San Francisco, CA

Director of Marketing

m/Oppenheim Associates is assisting San Francisco Ballet in the search for an innovative Director of Marketing to maximize ticket sales revenue in each audience cohort, increase engagement with young and diverse ticket buyers, and expand attendance at the Ballet’s extensive public and educational programs. For more information, please review the complete position description.

San Francisco Ballet is one of the art form’s international leaders, and embodies classical dance as bold, diverse, young, spirited. With a rich tradition of artistic “firsts” since its 1933 founding as the first professional ballet company in the United States (inc. the first American productions of Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and the North American premiere of Frankenstein in 2017), San Francisco Ballet once again drives home the Company’s idea of “dance without limits” with the spring 2018 season’s Unbound – 12 World Premieres by leading choreographers offered in 4 programs over 17 days.

Responsible for the outstanding international reputation of San Francisco Ballet, Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson has led the Company since 1985. Through Tomasson’s leadership, San Francisco Ballet is today known for a sophisticated and varied international repertoire, for powerful and entertaining dance embraced by audiences of all ages and backgrounds, and for the San Francisco Ballet School, the nation’s oldest professional ballet academy.

Central to the Ballet’s goal of remaining a world leader of classical ballet presented in innovative ways, is engaging a constantly refreshed, young and ever more diverse audience. To do this, San Francisco Ballet is evolving the audience mix. While the Ballet continues to attract traditional classic-arts ticket holders (aged 55+ who identify as non-hispanic/white), the Marketing Department also targets next generation audiences (age 25 – 45 cohorts, and those who identify as people of color). Over time, the objective is to shift the average age of the ballet audience to be younger and the audience demographic to be more in alignment with San Francisco’s population and visitor mix. Outreach is extremely broad, and targets different groups of San Francisco residents/visitors in ways that honor how those audience members define themselves by ethnicity, orientation, faith, career, gender, age and sensibility.

The Director of Marketing leads a department responsible for funding 45% of San Francisco Ballet’s $50m annual budget. The Marketing group’s prime goal is to maximize each source of earned revenue, while enabling the Ballet to cultivate the love of dance among new audience cohorts. The Director will manage, recruit and retain an effective department of 18 top-notch communications, marketing, audience engagement and patron services staff scaled to the needs of the Ballet. This staff is assisted by an array of contractors and vendors, with contract negotiation and compliance managed by the department. The Marketing Director’s role is to ensure that San Francisco Ballet is top of mind for every prospective audience member – young and old, regardless of ethnicity, background, career, gender or orientation.

For additional information or to apply, please contact Mark Oppenheim or Lee Kappelman at info[at]moppenheim[dot]com.

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