Cora Mirikitani

Cora Mirikitani is the President and CEO of the Center for Cultural Innovation (CCI), a California-based knowledge and financial services incubator for individual artists.  Cora’s extensive career in the arts includes more than 10 years in philanthropy as Program Officer for Culture at The Pew Charitable Trusts and later as Senior Program Director at The James Irvine Foundation in charge of their Arts program and Innovation Fund.  She has also held key leadership positions as an arts administrator and presenter, as CEO of the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center in Los Angeles, Director of Performing Arts and Film at the Japan Society in New York, and Executive Director of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance. In addition to working as a consultant to foundations and nonprofit arts organizations, Cora has been a lecturer, writer and advisor on numerous arts funding, policy and advisory panels and boards during her career.  She served on the board of directors of Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA) and chaired the 1999 GIA Conference held in San Francisco.  She was appointed as a member of the Los Angeles Mayor’s Council for the Arts in 2004 and now serves on the Mayor’s Nonprofit Advisory Council.  Cora has also participated on many national and international advisory committees including the Japan Foundation’s Performing Arts Japan program in the U.S. and The American Assembly.  She was a member of the board of directors of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) from 2003-2007, and was the recent recipient of a Durfee Foundation Stanton Fellowship award for 2008-2009.