Alex Sarian

Background

About Alex Sarian

From Madrid to Shanghai to New York City, Alex has worked on cultural projects in fifteen countries spanning five continents. A dual citizen of Canada and the European Union, Alex was raised in Buenos Aires and moved to New York City in 2002, where he held senior executive roles at several arts organizations, including Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. In January 2020, at the age of 36, Alex was appointed President & CEO of Arts Commons, becoming the youngest executive to oversee a major performing arts center in North America. In addition to successfully leading one of the country’s most important cultural centres during the COVID-19 pandemic, he is the driving force behind the $660 million ‘Arts Commons Transformation’—the largest cultural infrastructure project in Canadian history—which begun construction in 2024 and has broken national public and private fundraising records. Fluent in various languages, Alex volunteers on a number of international boards in the areas of philanthropy, education, urban and economic development, policy, and innovation. He received undergraduate and graduate degrees from New York University, is a graduate of the CommunityShift program at Western University’s Ivey School of Business, and was an inaugural graduate of the Impact Program for Arts Leaders at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. His bestselling book, “The Audacity of Relevance: Critical Conversations on the Future of Arts & Culture” (ECW Press / Simon & Schuster, 2024), was praised by Forbes as a “manifesto for the arts in times of crisis,” and has already become required reading for university courses around the world.