One spring day in 1983, Mark Weinstein (MBA 1981) sat down in his Watergate Tower office at Strategic Planning Associates in Washington, DC, looked out at the Kennedy Center, and worked out a strategic plan for his life. He had landed a pretty nice gig out of business school—consulting, which was the hot career path at the time. “I loved the intellectual challenge in working with really smart people,” recalls Weinstein. “What I didn’t enjoy very much was that I didn’t actually care whether or not Shell Oil of Canada made an extra $400 million next year partly based of my efforts. I didn’t see the point.”

The plan he built that day was a pyramid. On one side there was what he was good at: business. On the other side there was what he loved: music—specifically, opera. Since third grade, Weinstein had been in glee clubs and choruses. He had sung in a Catholic church as a kid; a Jewish boy who just happened to love Gregorian chant. He even took the lead in an HBS musical. “I realized at the very top of that pyramid was the intersection of business and opera,” says Weinstein, “and if I could get a job combining those two things, that would be the best thing in my life.”

Just a few months later, he was introduced to Beverly Sills of the New York City Opera, where the orchestra was about to go on strike. They needed someone with experience in labor relations. When Sills asked Weinstein if he had the experience, he lied. “Labor relations? That was my major at Harvard Business School,” he responded. Sills knew he wasn’t being truthful but nonetheless hired him to be the opera’s finance director. Later, he would be promoted to executive director.

“This was the first time I challenged the path that seemed laid out for me by societal norms,” observes Weinstein. “You are supposed to go to a good college (Carleton); you get a good job (General Mills); you go to a great MBA program (HBS); you take the highest-paying job you can get in the ‘hot’ field (consulting). That was the first time I actually thought about what made me happy. It was the first big decision I really made for myself.”

Over the next 35 years Weinstein held leadership positions at various arts organizations, including as general director of the Pittsburgh Opera, executive director of the Washington Opera at the Kennedy Center (with a view of the office window at Watergate Tower where he had devised his life plan), and CEO of the AT&T Performing Arts Center in Dallas. Today Weinstein is the president and CEO of the Brevard Music Center, an institute and summer festival for young musicians in Brevard, North Carolina. It’s here that Weinstein oversees the organization that trains elite young musicians who may eventually perform on the stages he’s led throughout his career.

A CEO’s role in the arts, notes Weinstein, is exactly the same as a CEO’s role in the for-profit world. The only difference is how he or she defines the ROI. “It’s not about money,” he says. “It’s about mission. Everything else is the same” And a mission-based ROI can be a tough sell sometimes. “I wish I had a stock price, because then it would be easy to show everybody how well we’re doing, or for them to realize we’re not doing so well. Instead, I have to translate the gains we make in terms of other things that are a little more squishy. Some people think this is a good thing, because it’s not definable. But it’s terrible, because you’d rather have a score. You’d rather have a stock price.”

Key to achieving Brevard Music Center’s mission, says Weinstein, is building a culture of excellence. When you’re a mission-based organization, and the status of your program and the talent of your staff and students is your ROI, you go after the best of the best. “These are kids who are extraordinarily talented, who have always been the best in their area, their city, their high school,” Weinstein says of Brevard’s students, who range in age from 12 to 28. “When they arrive at Brevard, there are a lot of kids who are younger than they are, who are better than they are, for the very first time.”

It can be daunting, but students who apply to Brevard also know the benefits of the rigorous schedule of practice and performance with peer musicians and faculty, as well as unique experiences like grabbing lunch with a Grammy winner. “When they come here, they eat in the cafeteria alongside the faculty—alongside [Boston Pops Orchestra conductor and Brevard artistic director] Keith Lockhart, alongside Yo-Yo Ma or Itzhak Perlman. And they eat alongside 500 other students, all of whom are interested in Beethoven and Mozart and how to make a reed for an oboe. These are things that none of their friends back at home, or very few of them, really care about,” Weinstein notes. It’s a part of the learning experience—the work and connections with peers, the ability to rub elbows with stars, and the recognition that there’s always room to improve. “We combine all of that with a support system, just like I felt in my first year at Harvard Business School, where everybody was so damn smart.”

At Brevard, the money made through tuition and performances—which draw an audience of 40,000 over the course of 80 to 100 shows each season—goes straight back into the nonprofit. It’s a $6 million organization, with nearly 25 percent of its income going directly toward scholarships to attract top students. The rest is used to bring in guest artists, recruit faculty, maintain facilities, and continually improve the experience for everyone involved. “Basically, in the business side of nonprofits, we’re enablers,” reflects Weinstein. “We enable the people who can be creative to go out and do their stuff, more so than if they didn’t have us around to help them.”

That assistance comes in the form of good business strategy and execution, in addition to fundraising. But Weinstein has a good case for philanthropists, especially when the requests for support come to them in many forms, from many organizations. “There is a hierarchy of needs. The first thing is feed starving children,” says Weinstein. “If you have only one dollar and you have to give it to only one organization, then give it to someone who’s going to feed a starving child. If you have a little bit more, go ahead and give it to some organization to put shelter over somebody’s head when it’s raining. Maybe you want to give to your synagogue or your church. Maybe you want to give to your university. But, at some point, you’ve got to give something—or society has to give something—to beauty, to music, to the arts, to flowers, to a park,” says Weinstein. “At some point, you have to feed the soul”.

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