Dorothy Gunther Pugh
As the CEO/founding artistic director of Ballet Memphis, Pugh has taken the company (now in its 33rd season) to national prominence and its new award-winning building in Overton Square. Ballet Memphis, the most diverse professional ballet company in the nation, has performed to glowing reviews in New York, Paris, and Washington, D.C. The Vanderbilt University graduate was named Outstanding Arts Administrator by the Tennessee Arts Commission, received the Women of Achievement Award for Initiative, and won a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to help redefine mid-size ballet companies in the nation. Pugh is with the Equity Project with 21 professional ballet companies nationwide. The company has won numerous awards, including honors from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Shubert Foundation, and the Princess Grace Foundation. A fellow in the National Arts Strategies Chief Executive Program, she is one of only 100 arts leaders globally chosen for innovative leadership and capacity for long-term success, and was named Memphis magazine’s “Memphian of the Year” in 2017.
