Russell Granet

Russell Granet was Acting President of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts from April 2018 to May 2019. Mr. Granet assumed this leadership role during a pivotal moment in Lincoln Center’s longstanding efforts to bring the best of the performing arts to the broadest possible audience.

Internationally respected as a strategic and effective advocate for arts education, Mr. Granet first joined Lincoln Center in 2012 as Executive Director of Lincoln Center Education (LCE), spearheading LCE’s highly successful fundraising, rebranding, and community outreach programs. In 2016, he was promoted to Executive Vice President of Lincoln Center Education, Community Engagement, and International, a division of Lincoln Center that provides thought leadership and executive-level training to clients around the world. Mr. Granet joined Lincoln Center after having founded the international consulting group Arts Education Resource (AER), which worked with leading cultural institutions, school districts, and public and independent schools on wide-ranging projects that included board development, strategic planning, program design, program funding, program implementation, and development of arts education programs for students with disabilities. Prior to founding AER, Mr. Granet held leadership positions at The Center for Arts Education, The NYC Annenberg Challenge and American Place Theatre, and was a senior teaching artist in NYC public schools. He served on the faculty of the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University for 20 years, where he developed and taught the course Drama with Special Populations.

Mr. Granet has many years of board-level experience. He currently serves as a trustee of Bank Street College, Goddard Riverside, and the Maktaba Project, and he previously served on the boards of the Association of Teaching Artists, American Alliance for Theatre and Education, American Place Theatre, Hilary Easton + Company, and was a founding board member of the NYC Arts in Education Roundtable and the Chair of Arts Education for the Columbia County (NY) Arts Council.

In addition to his consulting projects throughout the United States, Mr. Granet has worked internationally in Argentina, Australia, China, Egypt, England, Hong Kong, India, Kenya, Mexico, South Korea, Spain, Tanzania, and Turkey. He has received multiple awards for his work in arts education, including the Founder’s Award from the Bronx Charter School for the Arts, the Leadership Award from Diller-Quaile School of Music, and the Arts and Culture Award from the Turkish Cultural Center. In 2013, Mr. Granet’s leadership was cited as “visionary” in a Proclamation by the City of New York in recognition of LCE’s outstanding services to the arts and education communities. He currently serves as an advisor to the NYC Mayor’s Cabinet for Children. Mr. Granet is a graduate of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and Emerson College, and received his Master’s degree from the Steinhardt School of Education, New York University.