Strictly Boardroom
Stephanie Gianni (BSBA’15) pairs a head for business with a heart for dance
ON HER 16TH BIRTHDAY, Stephanie Gianni should have been performing in the International Dance Challenge in Hayward, California. Instead, she was watching from the audience. A foot injury had sidelined Gianni and ultimately spoiled her chances of becoming a professional dancer. But it gave her other career ideas. “I figured if I wanted to keep dance in my life without actually being a professional dancer, why not be the one to publicize all the work being put into these big productions?”
To nab her dream job in dance marketing, administration, or research, Gianni complements her Questrom studies with an arts leadership minor at BU College of Fine Arts. At internships with the English National Ballet, the Celebrity Series of Boston, and Hubbard Street Dance in Chicago, she researched competing companies, promoted events on social media, and helped build relationships with potential new audiences. In her spare time, she’s a dancer, choreographer, and leader in the BU dance community, serving as treasurer of BU’s Dance Theatre Group and vice president of the Edge Dance Company.
Working in nonprofit arts organizations, Gianni encounters challenges that classmates interning at multimillion-dollar corporations don’t, like modest budgets. She’s also discovered that standard business practice doesn’t always apply in the dance world. Instead of doing consumer market research and then creating a product, she says, a dance company often comes up with an artistic vision it then has to find a way to sell. Gianni wants to be the one to communicate that vision and get audiences—even reluctant ones—in seats. “Dance has given me so much,” she says. “I want to share that, and intrigue others to see if it could interest them too.”
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