Photo by Brian Guilliaux

ZENETTA S. DREW

Executive Director

Ms. Drew has been with Dallas Black Dance Theatre since 1987 and has seen the company grow dramatically over her tenure from an annual operating budget of $175,000 to over $4.9 million. The company’s yearly services have grown from 30 to over 600 with national and international venues and audience growth has increased from 20,000 to 150,000 annually. To date, the company has performed in 31 states, 15 countries and on 5 continents.

Prior to joining DBDT, Ms. Drew’s professional background included 11 years of accounting and management experience at ARCO Oil and Gas Co. During this time, she held ten positions of increasing management responsibility. Most notable were her assignments managing offshore oil platform projects in the Gulf of Mexico and as oil revenue accounting manager where she was responsible for 50% of corporate revenue.

She is the recipient of the 2003 Texas Legislative Black Caucus Outstanding Texan Award in Arts/Entertainment, 2004 recipient of the Dallas Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Alumnae Chapter’s Outstanding African American Women in the Arts Award, named 2009 Woman of the Year – St. Paul Baptist Church, a 2013 recipient of the Women of Color Achievement Award by The 100 Black Men of Greater Dallas/Fort Worth, Inc. and one of three inaugural inductees into the Academy of Entrepreneurs at Texas A&M University – Commerce. In 2016, she served as Accounting Alumni Ambassador for Texas A&M University – Commerce and received the university’s Distinguished Alumna Award. Ms. Drew was recognized as one of 30 global business school graduates to receive the 2016 Influential Leaders Award for diversity and inclusion from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. She received the 2016 Obelisk Award for Outstanding Leadership Arts Alumnus from the Business Council for the Arts and the 2017 International Association of Blacks in Dance-Excellence in Arts Management Award.

Ms. Drew is a graduate of the 1991 Leadership Dallas class, 2010 Leadership Texas class and 2013 Leadership International class, and has served on numerous boards including the Advisory Board for Booker T. Washington High School, Friends of WRR, the Dallas Women’s Foundation, founding member of Dallas Coalition for the Arts, the Executive Advisory Board of the College of Business and Technology at Texas A&M University – Commerce, Marketing Committee for the Dallas Museum of Art and the Advisory Board of Dallas Thanksgiving Square.

She currently serves on the Board of Governors for TACA (The Arts Community Alliance), the Advisory Board of the National Center for Arts Research at Southern Methodist University, the College of Business Advisory Council for Texas A&M University – Commerce, is a Board Member of Downtown Dallas, serves as board treasurer for both the Dallas Arts District and the City of Dallas’ Dallas Development Fund and is a member of the Women Presidents’ Organization.

Nationally, Ms. Drew has served on advisory panels for the National Endowment for the Arts and Houston Arts Council, as well as President Bill Clinton’s Americans for the Arts Strategic Planning Committee. Currently, she serves as treasurer on the board of directors for DataArts (formerly the Cultural Data Project) and is an Advisory Friend of the Le Moyne Graduate Program in Arts Administration.

Ms. Drew has guest lectured on fundraising, accounting, and arts leadership for multiple groups including the Texas Commission on the Arts, SMU, the Texas Society of CPA’s Nonprofit Organizations, Syracuse University, LeMoyne College and Texas A&M University – Commerce. She was commencement speaker for Texas A&M University – Commerce in August 2014 and has been a speaker at Leadership Dallas, Leadership Texas, Leadership America and the Business Council for the Arts for multiple years.

She holds a B.B.A. in Accounting from East Texas State University, a Management Certificate in Non-Profit Leadership from Brookhaven College, and recently graduated from the National Arts Strategies Executive Program at Harvard Business School.