Welcome to a singular online class experience where artists will seamlessly learn the skills of entrepreneurship through storytelling, lectures from experts, and real-world exercises to create financially sustainable and impactful careers based on an artist’s creative expression and practice.
Welcome to a singular online class experience where artists will seamlessly learn the skills of entrepreneurship through storytelling, lectures from experts, and real-world exercises to create financially sustainable and impactful careers based on an artist’s creative expression and practice.
We are on a mission to help artists reclaim their creative agency over their artistic careers. Today many artists are struggling to have financially sustainable careers in the arts. Artists deserve to pursue their craft, vocation, and passion without compromising their financial well-being. However, many artists are going from project to project or gig to gig without a clear strategy for their artistic practice to enable impact and finacial freedom.
Have already generated creative content or received grants for art projects and attempted to launch a business based on a creative practice
Jenny is a serial entrepreneur who has worked in the creative, mobility, education, and housing industries. As a Lecturer at MIT Sloan, she has taught courses like Scaling Entrepreneurial Ventures, Mobility Ventures, and Advanced Venture Building. Her research areas of interest include the impact of arts on civil society, cross-cultural community building, and translating entrepreneurial educational content for the creative community.
Among her startups are Optimus Ride, an MIT spinout that provided shared, electric, and autonomous mobility solutions in geofenced environments. Before getting acquired by Magna International the company raised over $75M and had just over 200 employees. The company was featured in multiple news outlets, including the New York Times.
Jenny earned her bachelor's at the University of Maryland, College Park and two master’s - and MBA from MIT Sloan and a Master in City Planning from the MIT School of Architecture and Planning.
Some of her volunteer activities include serving on nonprofit boards. LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-lario
Ben Shields is a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His work as a teacher, researcher, and practitioner focuses on the business of sports, media, and entertainment. He developed and teaches three new courses at MIT Sloan: Social Media Management, Creative Industries, and Sports Strategy and Analytics. In 2020, he received MIT’s Teaching with Digital Technology award. In 2022, he received the Jamieson Prize for Excellence in Teaching, MIT Sloan's most prestigious teaching award. Ben also teaches extensively in the MIT Sloan Executive Education program, serving as Faculty Director of the Global Executive Academy.
He is the author or coauthor of three books, Social Media Management: Persuasion in Networked Culture (Oxford University Press, 2016), The Sports Strategist: Developing Leaders for a High Performance Industry (Oxford University Press, 2015), and The Elusive Fan: Reinventing Sports in a Crowded Marketplace (McGraw-Hill, 2006). He has coauthored MIT Sloan case studies on Formula 1, the National Women's Soccer League, and ESPN. Prior to MIT Ben served as the Director of Social Media at ESPN. He earned a B.S. and M.A. in Communication Studies and a Ph.D. in Media, Technology, and Society, all from Northwestern University.