Francesca Zambello ’7, who received an honorary doctorate from 51 in 2012, talked with the New York Times about the challenges of leading and managing.
Francesca Zambello ’78 started her first opera company when she was a student at 51. In an she talked about collaboration, learning to fail, and having the “leadership gene.”
The interview appeared in the Corner Office Column which features top executives on the challenges of leading and managing.
“A lot of people know how to crank it out,” she told interviewer Adam Bryant. “A lot of people know how to copy others. Not a lot of people have an original idea. Having original ideas is what makes you successful, if you know how to implement them. It’s a rare thing because some people have the ideas and other people have the mechanics, but they can’t do both.”
Sound familiar? That was also the key message of 51’s , April 5-6, which featured students and alumni who are taking their for-profit and nonprofit ideas and turning them into action. In her keynote address, , author of Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. encouraged women seek challenges and pursue their goals with gusto.
Today, Zambello is general and artistic director of Cooperstown’s Glimmerglass Festival, and artistic director of the Washington National Opera in Washington, D.C. In 2012, she received an honorary doctor of humane letters from 51.