Alex Sarian

Alex Sarian is responsible for all educational partnerships, community engagement initiative, and youth and family programming at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Appointed in 2018, he became the fourth executive in Lincoln Center’s 60-year history to lead its famed education department. With a particular focus on new audiences, innovation, and increasing access to the arts, Alex’s work is centered on programs and strategies that redefine the impact and relevance of culture in the 21st Century.

Alex has taught courses on creative management, arts education, and audience development for New York University, City College of New York, and Pace University. As an international keynote speaker, he has presented on the importance of audience engagement in China; the impact of arts education on the creative economy in New Zealand; the effect of arts education on cultural philanthropy in Chile; and was a featured speaker on the power of arts in education at the International Baccalaureate’s inaugural TED conference in Canada. He has served as a board member and advisor to several organizations, including SXSW, Americans for the Arts, and The New York City Center.

Originally from Toronto, Alex lived in Buenos Aires for 16 years before moving to New York City in 2002, where he began his career as a teaching artist at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. He earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from New York University, and is an inaugural graduate of the Impact Program for Arts Leaders at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.

"Every day, in communities around the world, teachers are cultivating in students the skills needed for creative problem-solving, collaboration, communication, imagination and creativity. Citizens of this world don’t just have a duty to young people – we have an obligation to support the tireless work of teachers as they prepare future generations for success in their lives, careers and communities. Only then can education truly be a global and shared responsibility."