Barry Hughson, a Connecticut native, marks his 20th anniversary as a professional arts executive in 2012.  In his current role as Executive Director and CEO of Boston Ballet, Hughson manages the fourth largest ballet company in the US, with a $31 million dollar annual budget, 700 employees, a world-class professional ballet company and North America’s largest ballet academy.

Prior to his appointment in Boston, Hughson was Executive Director of Atlanta Ballet, where he successfully engineered the move to the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center, completed the sale of the Ballet’s real estate resulting in the elimination of the Company’s debt, resolved a dispute with the Atlanta Ballet Orchestra, and developed the $14.8 million “Choreographing Our Future” campaign. To date, it is the most successful fundraising campaign in Atlanta Ballet’s 80-year history.

Hughson’s experience includes a distinguished career in arts administration which began at the historic Warner Theatre in Torrington, CT. There, Hughson created the Warner’s acclaimed Centre for Arts Education, and led a successful $12.5 million campaign to restore the Warner Theatre’s art deco building. He went on to become the first Executive Director of Complexions Contemporary Ballet in New York City before working with the American Repertory Ballet and Princeton Ballet School in Princeton, NJ.

As an arts advocate, consultant, and educator, Hughson has worked extensively, including teaching and speaking engagements in the US, Europe and South America. Most recently, Hughson was a featured speaker at Harvard Business School as part of its annual Social Enterprise Conference, and represented the United States on the jury of the Russia’s Benois de la Danse in 2009.
 
Additionally, Hughson has a background as an award-winning dancer and choreographer who has performed the works of George Balanchine, Jirí Kylián, Choo San Goh and Antony Tudor as an artist of The Washington (DC) Ballet. He was the only American male dancer awarded a prize at the 1990 New York International Ballet Competition, and was recognized as Outstanding Choreographer at the Youth America Grand Prix Finals in 2002.

Hughson received his childhood training from Sharon Dante and Donna Bonasera at the Nutmeg Conservatory for the Arts and the Connecticut Dance Theatre. In 1979 at age 11, he founded the Youth Theatre Ensemble in his hometown of Watertown, Connecticut, which provided access to theatre for thousands of local young people during its near 20-year run as a non-profit arts organization. 

Hughson currently resides in Wellesley, MA with his wife, Ashley, and their two children, Aila and Tyler.

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