August 2003, MIT Sloan website

MIT Sloan grad Frances Lai fine-tunes her management skills

MIT Sloan graduate Frances Lai this summer will be worrying less about interest rates and the economic outlook than about whether she has the correct sheet music or whether the second violins are crowded.

Lai, a Dallas native who graduated in June, is in Colorado managing the Aspen Chamber Symphony, one of five orchestras that perform at the Aspen Music Festival and School. The position is part of a one-year paid fellowship with the American Symphony Orchestra League.

After her summer stint in Aspen, Lai will hold management positions with three U.S. regional orchestras — learning different aspects of orchestra management in each position.

"It is a very exciting job and a whole new world, but nothing like what my fellow MBAs are doing," she says. "My job for the summer is operational. ... It's a big responsibility, and I can see similarities to what a logistics manager at a manufacturing facility might be facing."

Road to New York
In the fall, Lai will be with the Pacific Symphony Orchestra in Orange County, Calif., working on a ticket-sales program.

"I'll be crunching data using regression analysis to come up with an algorithm to predict what programs will sell," she says. "The Atlanta Symphony has such a system in place that is quite accurate at predicting ticket sales."

She will also be working on the orchestra's American Composers festival, which this year will feature prominent Chinese-American composers, such as Tan Dun — who won an Oscar for his score of the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon — and Bright Sheng.

This coming winter, Lai will help manage the Elgin Symphony Orchestra, a small orchestra in Elgin, Ill., which she says prides itself in sound fiscal management.

Her fellowship will culminate next spring in a position with the New York Philharmonic, the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States. She'll be joining the philharmonic at an exciting time — it recently announced plans to move its New York concerts from Lincoln Center to Carnegie Hall.

"The recent announcement is akin to Boeing announcing that they've picked Chicago as their new corporate headquarters," says Lai. "This is one of the best orchestras in the world. I can't wait to see what kind of projects I'll get."

Lure of the arts
Pursuing arts management might seem like a unique route for a recent MBA graduate, but Lai's muse never fell silent.

She played piano and flute in band and orchestra throughout high school. Before she came to MIT Sloan, she traveled to Asia on business and took in pianist André Watts in Singapore, La Boheme in Hong Kong, and the ballet in Sydney.

At MIT Sloan, she did summer internships at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge.

"It's funny to me that I'm going into performing arts management coming out of MIT Sloan," she says. "But over the past two years, I've thought a lot about what I love, and I keep coming back to the arts."

A career in arts management is very much in tune with the MIT Sloan spirit, says Lai.

Classes in leadership, organizational culture, human resources management, and quantitative topics will help her, she says, and the MIT Sloan culture — a meritocracy of energy and ideas — inspires.

"If anything, MIT Sloan encourages you to really think about and pursue your interests," says Lai. "For the next year, I'm going to be immersed in classical music. I'm really looking forward to it."