Chad joined the Conservatory’s Board of Trustees in July of 2014 and served as its Treasurer before joining the staff as Executive Director in August of 2016. Prior to joining the Conservatory, Chad was a Managing Director in the Real Estate Investment Banking Group at Deutsche Bank Securities where he worked for over 15 years covering public and private real estate companies, investment managers and private equity platforms.

Earlier in his career, Chad worked for four years at the St. Louis Development Corporation, the economic development agency of the City of St. Louis, Missouri. There, he designed and implemented community and economic development programs targeted towards alleviating poverty in some of the most economically distressed neighborhoods in St. Louis and East St. Louis. During his time in St. Louis, Chad also co-founded a project-based grassroots non-profit organization called Metropolis Saint Louis, which sought to foster greater engagement of young people in city revitalization efforts.

Like many Staff and Board members of the Conservatory, Chad was drawn to the organization by a love of music. It is a thread that connects many joyful and formative experiences in his life, from nervously singing in school plays before his 5th grade classmates; to performing timeless jazz standards in college with the Yale Whiffenpoofs; to the joy he experiences today seeing how music makes his two sons – both piano students at the Conservatory – instantly happy. Chad is a piano student at the Conservatory himself, having started piano lessons when he joined the Staff, and still not sounding very good.

Chad recently was elected to the Board of Trustees of the National Guild of Community Arts Education, a membership-based organization whose mission it is to develop leaders, strengthen organizations, and advocate for community arts education around the country. The Conservatory is one of the 400+ proud members of the Guild, and we wholeheartedly share the Guild’s vision of a nation where arts education is accessible and embraced as essential for human development and healthy communities.

Chad earned his MBA from Stanford and his BA from Yale.