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avatar for Laura Zucker

Laura Zucker

Claremont Graduate University
Senior Fellow
Los Angeles, California
Laura Zucker is a nationally recognized arts leader whose expertise spans grant making, arts education, cross sector work in the arts, cultural policy, capital project master planning, public art, cultural tourism, and funding strategies. During the past three years she has completed a wide-ranging group of consulting projects, including strategic plans, executive coaching, capital feasibility studies, and board retreat facilitations. She works both independently and in affiliation with AEA Consulting, a global arts management consulting firm.
Laura is a senior fellow in the Masters in Arts Management program at Claremont Graduate University where she teaches master classes in cultural policy and cross sector work in the arts, and where she served as program director from 2008-2014.
She served more than two decades as executive director of the Los Angeles County Arts Commission. In that capacity, Laura directed the funding for more than 400 arts organizations, implemented the regional initiative to restore arts education to 81 public school districts and directed civic art policy for the largest county in the United States. Major accomplishments during her tenure include: completing a strategic plan for Cultural Equity and Inclusion that resulted in actionable recommendations; heading the California Cultural Tourism Initiative and shaping the regional cultural calendar on DiscoverLA.com; and completing the $70 million revitalization of the Ford Amphitheatre. Ms. Zucker also authored a regional study of individual artists as part of the California Arts Council’s economic impact study on the arts. She created the largest paid arts internship program for undergraduates in the country in conjunction with the Getty Trust, and was executive producer of the Emmy® Award winning Holiday Celebration.
Prior to the Arts Commission, Laura was executive director of the Ventura Arts Council and producing director of the Back Alley Theatre for ten years. During that time, she served as Chair of the Associated Theatres of Los Angeles. She consulted with the National Endowment for the Arts and developed operational plans for many theatres.
She is on the Board of the Music Man Foundation, and has served on the boards of Grantmakers in the Arts, the Association of Arts Administration Educators, ARTS Inc., the Trusteeship, the Southern California Chapter of the International Women's Forum, and on the advisory board of the Angell Foundation. She was a founding board member of Arts for LA, which created an annual fellowship in her honor: the Laura Zucker Cultural Policy Fellowship. She is also a member of the Los Angeles Coalition for Jobs and the Economy. In 2017 Americans for the Arts designated her for the Selina Roberts Ottum Award, which recognizes an individual working in arts management who has made a meaningful contribution to his or her local community and who exemplifies extraordinary leadership qualities. She received a B.A. from Barnard College and attended the Yale School of Drama.




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