A singer-turned-CEO shares insights

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Few people in Louisville probably know the overlap between art and business better than Ben Robinson.

Robinson, a singer-turned-CEO, was appointed as general director and CEO of the Kentucky Opera in November. We get a chance to catch up with him this week on Access Louisville, a weekly podcast from Louisville Business First.

Robinson is not only an accomplished singer but a stage director and arts executive who brings creative vision, operational expertise and a deep commitment to opera as a community-building force, a release announcing his hire last year said. He replaced former CEO Barbara Lynne Jamison. Peggy Kriha Miller has been leading in an interim capacity.

Most recently, Robinson was general director of Anchorage Opera in Alaska and managing director of Lyric Fest in Philadelphia.

On this week's show, he talks about his first season at the reigns.

Louisville has always been a community that places a clear value on the arts, he said.

"Great arts and a great foundation for arts supports great businesses," he said. "It attracts people to this area. It helps build an economy."

Right now there's a lot of energy particularly at peer organizations and everyone seems to want to work together on projects that are mutually beneficial, Robinson tells us.

"It's all audience focused. And we have one of the greatest audiences here and they are sophisticated and interested in supporting great art. It's an awesome thing to come into," he said.

He also talked about the business side of his role.

"It's never anything other than a 50-50 balancing act between rewarding and horrifying," he said, jokingly.

The economic impact of arts organizations should never be under estimated, yet they tend to stay in a constant fiscal crunch. He said he views his job with an integrated approached to both arts and business.

If we don't put on great programing that serves as the engine to the whole machine "then we're not doing the job the right way." With that, he's always looking at the organization's resources, where revenue is coming from as well as expenses.

You can hear more in the full interview in the player above or where ever you get podcasts.

Access Louisville is a weekly podcast from Louisville Business First. You can follow it on popular podcast services including Apple Podcasts and Spotify, which are linked above. You can also listen in the player above.