In the age of the celebrity CEO, why are orchestra bosses invisible?

50 years ago, most people would not be able to name a single CEO of one of the world’s biggest companies. Now, not only can most people name a long list of CEOs, but we’re basically obsessed with them.

We live in the age of the celebrity CEO, where the founders and CEOs of companies have large public personas and their followings usually eclipse those of the organisations they run. Their journeys, ideas, and opinions are of great interest to people all over the world.

Think Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Sheryl Sandberg, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Susan Wojcicki, Richard Branson… the list goes on.

Even on a smaller business scale, the CEOs who are in Dragon’s Den (or Shark Tank in the USA) don’t run Fortune 500 companies, but they are all household names with large social media followings and appear on other TV shows.

These CEOs are the figureheads, ambassadors, and champions of their companies, the thought leaders of their industries and the world we live in. Being visible is of huge importance for raising the profile of their business and converting people to join their businesses’ cause and share their values.

The world of orchestras couldn’t be further away from this modern age of the celebrity CEO, with bosses being invisible to the public and even to those within the industry. It’s rare to know who they are and rarer still to know what their values or thoughts on the industry are.

I recently attended the Association of British Orchestras conference which got me thinking about this as an idea. Those orchestra bosses at the conference that were a part of panels and sharing their thoughts on the future of the industry were in the minority.

Last year I wrote an article on “10 classical music thought leaders you should really be following” and as part of it asked for other people’s suggestions on Twitter. Looking back, I didn’t include a single orchestra boss on my list and I’m certain that they were absent from others’ suggestions too.

I imagine that most musicians, students, and audiences won’t know who the CEOs of professional orchestras are. Taking me out of my UK comfort zone, despite working in the nuts and bolts of the orchestra industry I can only name one CEO of orchestras in the USA.

A quick bit of research on the 14 full time professional symphony orchestras in the UK* and their CEOs. Only 10 of those CEOs have a professional social media account. Only 3 have an account that you could describe as “regularly active”. Only 1 has a following over 1,000. None are sharing their ideas or thoughts on the industry.

A fun challenge if you’re reading this, name as many orchestra bosses in your country as you can. If you can, do you know what their thoughts on the industry are or what their values are?

You might be asking yourself “why is this important?”. For me, there are two answers. It’s of huge benefit for the orchestra they run and it’s or vital importance to the future of orchestras and classical music as a whole.

Let’s start with the first one. Why is it a huge benefit to the orchestras? The good news is that orchestra bosses are already the figureheads of their organisations. It’s just not overt. CEOs regularly meet dignitaries, patrons, and sponsors. They host fundraising events, attend industry events, and network on behalf.

This is the same for these celebrity CEOs. However, they take it a success further to have widespread and global impact. The success of this stems from the fact that people build relationships and trust with individuals a lot easier than they do with faceless corporations. As a result, they can build a much larger following and convert people to join their cause a lot easier than their company.

For example, Elon Musk’s 77.3m Twitter followers compared to Tesla’s 1.5m. Richard Branson’s 12.6m Twitter followers compared to Virgin’s 250k. Jessica Alba’s 19.5m followers on Instagram compared to The Honest Company’s 1m… you get the picture.

The good work that orchestra bosses do behind closed doors could be hugely amplified by being visible and overt. Imagine what the fundraising, reputational, or ticketing potential could be if the orchestra boss were to build strong meaningful relationships at scale through digital, press, and media, sharing the story of the orchestra, its direction, and its cause with others!

It goes much further than this. By sharing their methodology, leadership style, and cause they can attract others to work with them. Either by becoming a talent magnet for those wanting to join their cause and ultimately work with them and orchestra, or by identifying potential partner organisations to collaborate with. The impact of having a visible leader building relationships at scale and sharing the cause of the orchestra could be huge and long lasting.

For me, there is also strong a second reason for why we need out leaders in classical music to be visible. We are living through a period of unprecedented disruption. The consequences of the digital age, recovering from a global pandemic, climate change, and plenty more are felt throughout all walks of life.

For the classical music and orchestral industry, we are facing more challenges to justify our place in the world, either for attention of our audience, funding from governments and trusts, and our purpose in society. These challenges are only going to get bigger, and it is short sighted to think that we are not in for a serious fight for the future of orchestras in the next 10 years. We need vocal and visible leaders to not just be ambassadors of our industry and art form, but to become active champions of it, rolling up their sleeves and fighting for its future.

This is a situation where we are all very much in it together. Campaigning for the future of orchestras and classical music has a significant impact. This isn’t just about looking out for an individual orchestra or those orchestras that get the big Arts Council funding grants. This is about justifying classical music’s place in society to both decision makers and to the public, which then impacts freelance musicians, teachers, amateur ensembles, education projects, music in care homes, children… all of us!

So, if there are so many benefits to being a visible leader and a strong case for why we need visible leaders for the industry as a whole why are orchestra bosses invisible?

Looking at the bigger picture, the reasons for this are similar to the reasons behind many of the orchestral industries challenges. As an industry, we really aren’t good at adopting change. Whether this is digital, marketing, technology, HR, innovation etc. we tend to struggle. The role of the CEO in the modern world is different now than it was 20 years ago for all industries, and some have adapted faster than others. We need to start adopting this different idea of what the modern orchestra boss looks to make it the expected norm within the industry and that this becomes part of their job role.

Now, the smaller picture is a little more complex. CEO’s are human. And being human, there are a whole range of thoughts, feelings, and anxieties. There are likely to be lots of reasons on a personal and individual level that stop CEO’s from being visible and vocal champions. Many will have to adopt new ways other thinking and doing things to be able to do this. Being an “influencer”, or rather a “person of influence”, in the modern is a skill. It takes work, but it is something that can be learnt and fits into the strengths and passions of the individual.

Orchestra bosses should be taking the initiative themselves to start being visible and learning about how to become visible and a “person of influence” in the modern world to champion their orchestras and classical music. But we also need to support and empower them. I think there could be a lot that we as an industry could do help with this, whether that is through organisations like the Association of British Orchestras and League of American Orchestras to facilitate training, the orchestras themselves finding CPD opportunities for our leaders, or indeed all of us rallying round to support them. After all, we are all in this together.

*UK fulltime symphony orchestras – LPO, LSO, Philharmonia, RPO, Halle, RLPO, CBSO, BSO, RSNO, Ulster Orchestra, BBC SO, BBC Philharmonic, BBC NoW, BBC SSO

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