MA Top 30 Professional: Lesley Rosenthal

Chief Operating Officer
Corporate Secretary to the Board of Directors
The Juilliard School

A Harvard-trained lawyer, nonprofit manager, author, violinist, and all-around arts advocate, Lesley Rosenthal has long been regarded as a visionary leader in the arts. In her current position as chief operating officer and corporate secretary to the board of directors at The Juilliard School, she has “redefined the role of an arts administrator by blending legal expertise, strategic leadership, and a deep commitment to mission,” according to colleague and fellow faculty member John-Morgan Bush

“One of the beauties of being COO,” Rosenthal says, is that the work is “so varied.” For example, she recently led a year-long process to revisit Juilliard’s mission statement and strategic priorities, ensuring “down to the most minute level of detail” that the building, people, and instruments would be appropriately cared for in years to come.

Before Juilliard, Rosenthal was the executive vice president, general counsel, and secretary of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. There, she was called upon to blend her legal training with her passion for the arts, much as she does today.

Most striking among her accomplishments, however, was her involvement in rescuing the students, faculty, and staff of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM) in 2021 after the Taliban regained power. As president of the Friends of ANIM, an organization founded to help fund and support the Institute, Rosenthal helped coordinate the airlift of 273 students, faculty, and staff to Qatar before the musicians were granted asylum in Portugal.

“I believe to my core that the arts are an extremely powerful way to bring people together,” Rosenthal says, reflecting on the breadth of her career. “They inspire beauty, empathy, understanding—and disturbance: so many elements of the human experience.”

Throughout her many demanding roles, Rosenthal has never lost her personal spark for music. “I grew up playing the violin and never stopped,” she says. “I just enjoy making music so much.” In that capacity, she co-founded the Park Avenue Chamber Symphony, plays jazz with her family, liturgical music at her synagogue, and, most recently, joined a country rock band. When asked how she finds the time, Rosenthal laughed. “I don’t watch a lot of TV,” she says. “And sleep is overrated.”