Dr. Anne Huang, Development Director, World Arts West (Heritage)

Bio: Dr. Anne Huang is the Development Director of World Arts West, producers of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, which supports Bay Area dance companies that are sustaining and celebrating the world’s cultural legacy.  Anne is the former Executive Director of Oakland Asian Cultural Center, where she transformed a struggling arts organization into a thriving cultural institution serving 50,000 people a year, and forged innovative partnerships such as 100 Families: Art and Social Change and Oakland Chinatown Oral History Project with StoryCorps...

A leading consultant in culturally specific capacity building, Anne has supported strategic fundraising, leadership development, media engagement, and arts advocacy for organizations such as CubaCaribe, Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, Bisemi Foundation, Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco, and many others. As a long-time cultural arts leader, Anne has played key leadership roles for Oakland’s Mayoral Arts Task Force, New York Foundation for the Arts’ Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program, and Dance/USA’s Institute for Leadership Training.

Why do you do the work that you do? “My deep commitment to empowering immigrant artists in marginalized communities is driven by my own experience as an immigrant and my family’s journey to escape political persecution. I’ve been deeply transformed by being part of Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, Obakoso Drum and Dance Ensemble, and supporting countless cultural artists, which has given me a profound belief in the traditional arts to connect individuals and transform communities.”