Alexe Nowakowski has been involved with CityDance since its founding in 1996. She was appointed Executive Director in 2005 and President & CEO 2012. She began as a dancer in CityDance’s professional company and served as an adviser until formally joining the organization’s staff as Business Director in 2002. Previously, Alexe spent 10 years as a technology and online product development professional serving as an Operations Manager at UUNet/WorldCom and then Vice President of Online Services at MarketResearch.com. She brings her extensive business background to her leadership role, with expertise in finance, software and web development, marketing and management. This breadth of skills, combined with an intimate knowledge of dance, guides her work with the CityDance Board and ensures the organization’s artistic, educational and programmatic goals are supported by a viable strategic and operational plan. Alexe has spearheaded a remarkable transformation of CityDance, growing the organization’s budget from $150,000 in 2002 to more than $3 million today. Under her leadership, CityDance has developed a strong and solvent infrastructure and ambitiously established three thriving, award-winning programmatic arms, including one of the region’s most prestigious centers for pre-professional dance training located at the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda, MD. During her tenure, CityDance has won DC Mayor’s Arts Awards for Outstanding Emerging Artist, Innovation in the Arts, Excellence in an Artistic Discipline and Outstanding Achievement in Arts Education. In 2015, The VIVA School (formerly CityDance DREAM) received the prestigious President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award. Dedicated to the DC community, Alexe has been an active voice for the arts and arts education in the District, serving on numerous arts education panels. She has also been an outspoken advocate of the city’s out-of-school-time programming, testifying at hearings on behalf of funding for DC youth. In 2012, she was invited to sit on Mayor Gray’s Economic Transition Team’s Subcommittee on the Creative Economy, which informed the Mayor’s platform and resulted in his 100-page Creative Economy Strategy for the District of Columbia. With more than 15 years working and living in Washington, DC, she has successfully built strategic partnerships to advance CityDance’s goals and enrich the city’s cultural ecosystem. Alexe obtained her bachelor’s degree in political science and philosophy from the College of William and Mary.
