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Ms. Zenetta S. Drew, executive director of Dallas Black Dance Theatre
The featured speaker for this the 34th Annual Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Awards Celebration will be Zenetta S.
Drew.
Drew has served as executive director of Dallas Black Dance Theatre since 1987. During her tenure, Dallas Black Dance Theatre has grown from a community-based organization to a fully professional dance company, whose annual operating budget has increased from $175,000 to more than 4.9 million.
Annual services at the dance theatre have also grown from 30 to more than 600, including national and international venues and total audience growth has increased from 20,000 to more than 150,000. Under her administrative leadership, Dallas Black Dance Theatre has performed on some of the world’s most prestigious stages including the Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center and at the Olympics, as well as performances for President Nelson Mandela.
Prior to joining Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Drew’s professional background included 11 years of ac counting and management experience at ARCO Oil and Gas Co. During this time, she held nine 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, coordinators for the Sulphur Springs MLK Awards program noted. Drew is credited as first African American female to receive a BBA in accounting from Texas A&M University- Commerce and in 2016 became the first African American female to be named a Distinguished Alumna in 2016.
She holds a Management Certificate in Non-Profit Leadership from Brookhaven College and is a 2016 graduate of the National Arts Strategies Executive Program through Harvard Business School and the University of Michigan, Ross School of Business in 2017.
She includes among her accomplishments being a 1989 graduate of Leadership Arts, 1991 graduate of Leadership Dallas, 2010 graduate of Leadership Texas and 2013 graduate of Leadership International. She too is member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Epsilon Sigma chapter.
Included among the honors Ms. Drew has attained are being the recipient of the 2003 Texas Legislative Black Caucus Outstanding Texan Award in Arts and Entertainment, 2004 recipient of the Dallas Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Alumnae Chapter’s Outstanding African American Women in the Arts Award, being 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 being 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 was the summer 2014 commencement speaker.
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. She also received the 2018 Dallas Historical Society Award for Arts Leadership for, the 2021 Dance/ USA’s Ernie Award, and was also a nominee for the Association for Performing Arts Professionals William Dawson Award in 2021.
Ms. Drew has served on more than 40 arts orference, ganization boards, advisory boards and committees that include Americans for the Arts, Board Treasurer for the Cultural Data Project and Vice-Chair of the Dallas Arts District.
Currently, Drew serves as a member of the Texas A&M University System Chancellor’s Century Council, treasurer for the Dallas Development Fund, is an executive board member for the Dallas Arts District, an advisory board member for SMU/Data Arts, and serves as a board member with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, TAMU- Commerce Foundation Board, and Tessitura Network Board of Directors.
Ms. Drew too is an ad- junct professor in SMU’s M.A./M.B.A. Arts Management Program teaching Strategic Planning in the Arts.
She has guest-lectured and served on panels and is an arts management consultant on fundraising, financial management, financial ethics, non-profit boards, and organizational management for multiple groups including DeVos Institute of Arts Management, National Endowment for the Arts, Texas Commission on the Arts, the International Association of Blacks in Dance Conference, City of Dallas Office of Arts & Culture, OPERA America Conference, Capacity Interactive, Tessitura Network, Grantmakers in the Arts, Wallace Foundation, Women in Classical Music – Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, The Dallas Morning News, Dallas Institute, Southern Methodist University, Syracuse University, Le Moyne College, TAMU-Commerce, Butler University, Virginia Commonwealth University, North Texas Business Council for the Arts, Leadership Dallas, and Leadership America.