Old Town School of Folk Music Announces New CEO

CHICAGO — The Old Town School of Folk Music announced Friday that it has appointed Chicago business executive Jim Newcomb as its Chief Executive Officer. In this new role for the organization, Newcomb will focus on providing overall leadership and coordination with the school's stakeholders while the search process is conducted for its permanent executive leadership.

Kish Khemani, chairman of the school's board of directors, said that Newcomb’s strong relationship with the non-profit, combined with his philanthropic and business leadership, makes him highly qualified for the role.

“As a student, board member and active volunteer leader in our Old Town School community, Jim understands the organization and has strong relationships across the entire school," Khemani said in a statement. "He is well-respected by the board, senior staff, faculty and fellow students as well as by the philanthropic and business communities in Chicago.”

Khemani said Newcomb has helped other organizations achieve success in the past.

“He has demonstrated a deep love and real commitment to the school, the school’s mission, its teachers and its students,” Khemani said.

Following former Executive Director Bau Graves’ retirement due to health-related issues in January, Newcomb will serve as CEO through June 30, 2020.

Current Interim Executive Director Rashida Phillips will assume the position of Senior Director, Community Ventures for the Old Town School of Folk Music. In this role, she will lead and oversee the school’s community programs, including Music Moves, Guitars for Growth, Chicago Public School Programs and fee for service programs. This expanded role aligns well with Phillips’ skill set and community work to grow new programmatic and partnership initiatives to further the school’s mission, the non-profit said.

Newcomb will resign from the board during this appointment and has paused his consulting business, Platypus Marketing Group, to assume this position at the request of the Executive Committee of the Board.

Prior to consulting, Newcomb spent 16 years at Boeing, the last 10 as an award-winning global brand marketing executive and leader of several large groups within the company, including the company’s retail businesses. Before that, Newcomb worked as a non-profit fundraising and marketing executive for seven years at a number of Chicago-area institutions. Prior to that he worked as a teacher.

Newcomb’s experience in arts management and music dates back nearly 30 years when he joined the Board of a local theater company. Since then, he has been recognized as a Chicagoan of the Year by the Chicago Tribune as a founder of the Chicago Jazz Partnership. He is also a recipient of the Chicago Jazz Partnership’s “Think Big Award”, the Jazz Institute of Chicago’s “Timuel Black Community Service Award” and the Chicago Arts & Business Council’s Arts Marketing award.

“I’m excited to join the school and eager to get to work,” Newcomb said in a statement. “After spending more than a month as a volunteer working closely with the team, I have seen first-hand the commitment that the Board, teachers, staff and students have for the school and the community it serves. We are all very lucky to be a part of this amazing organization, and I look forward to working through the challenges and opportunities ahead to help position the school for further growth and long-term success.”

Annually Old Town School of Folk Music serves more than 13,000 students, sees 38,000 enrollments and welcomes in over 189,000 attendees to its classes, lessons, camps, school partnerships, concerts, festivals, workshops and events.

Late last year, the school announced it's postponing the sale of its Lincoln Park campus. Many community members have rallied to halt the sale — a petition garnered thousands of signatures and the group Save Old Town School is pushing for the school to keep the campus.

The next session of classes for all ages begins the week of March 4, 2019.

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