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Wednesday, March 2, 2010
6 Minutes With a CEO
Charlie Humphrey
Executive Director,
Pittsburgh Filmmakers
Executive Director, Pittsburgh Center for the Arts
Executive Director, Pittsburgh Glass Center
- When did you know that you wanted to be a CEO?
I can't ever recall aspiring to be a CEO. I've always, very mistakenly, thought I was already in charge. I don't recommend this approach.
- Tell us about the developmental experiences you feel best prepared you to lead.
Working at McDonalds was transformative. A rag was never a rag, it was a towel. There is never, ever, nothing to do. Resist the urge to run in the rain after standing all day in front of a hot, spitting grill wearing rubber soled shoes.
- What's the best leadership advice you have received?
Don't allow your job to define who you are. Get out of the way. Remove obstacles for others. Give credit where it is due. Never ask anyone to do something you have not done yourself, in one manner or another. Be creative but listen. Most problems presented by others are buried and need to be excavated. Understand the numbers. Realize that you don't have to do everything. You just have to cause things to happen.
- When developing younger leaders, what methods and approaches do you find work the best?
Give meaningful and fulfilling assignments. Don't hover, but be available for support. Be responsive. Don't ask for something and then take a week to read it. Include young people in top level conversations and meetings.
- What skills or attributes are uniquely required of an arts CEO, versus the leader of a non-arts organization?
I wish I knew.
- When you need to recharge your batteries, or get inspired, what do you do?
I play music, I read and I write, I play doubles squash and, of course, I watch movies.
- Please complete this sentence – People would be surprised to know that I...
People would be surprised to know that I am probably mildly dyslexic. I was never diagnosed because when I was a kid, no one was paying attention to that stuff.
- You've merged two dynamic arts organizations into one and have led the turnaround at the Pittsburgh Glass Center. What's next for Charlie Humphrey?
Filmmakers is working with The Pittsburgh Foundation and the Knight Foundation to launch a web based regional journalism portal. We hope to go live with it in June and, if all goes well, migrate it to the new 90.5 FM in a year or so. Also, we are in conversations now to merger with the Pittsburgh Glass Center. If all that goes well, and there is still work to be done, we will close the deal at the end of this year.
Charlie Humphrey has been Executive Director of Pittsburgh Filmmakers since 1992. Pittsburgh Filmmakers is one of the oldest and largest media arts centers in the United States. Before joining Filmmakers, Humphrey was editor and publisher of In Pittsburgh, an alternative weekly paper. Prior to that he was a radio producer and announcer, and still does occasional voiceover work for film and other media. In addition to his role at Filmmakers, Humphrey is Executive Director of the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, assuming the dual positions after the Center closed amid a financial crisis in August of 2004, and is also Executive Director on the Pittsburgh Glass Center. Filmmakers and the Center for the Arts are now legally merged. Humphrey sits on the board of Directors of the Quantum Theater, the New Hazlett Theater and GPAC. He is a past president of the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture and past chair of the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Alliance. Over the last decade he has been on the boards of Silver Eye Center for Photography, The Mattress Factory, funding panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Massachusetts Cultural Council, The Heinz Family Foundation and the Heinz Endowments' Small Arts Initiative.
Humphrey graduated from Whitman College in 1981 with a degree in philosophy.
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