Creative Entrepreneurship
The Office for the Arts at Harvard supports students in understanding artistic practice as a foundation for entrepreneurial thinking and leadership.
If you’ve produced a play, organized a concert, mounted an exhibition, led a student group, or developed an interdisciplinary project, you’ve already practiced many of the transferable skills required to build and sustain a venture: collaboration, budgeting, project management, storytelling, iteration, and leadership.
Through workshops offered during the academic year and a two-day Wintersession intensive, students are invited to come as they are—curious, experimenting, and open. No business background is required, and identifying as an “entrepreneur” is not expected. The program introduces an entrepreneurial mindset as a creative tool for shaping ideas, building projects, and navigating the arts and creative industries with intention and values.
Students may bring a project to develop, but it is not required. The program supports artists at an early stage in understanding how their creative work can evolve into sustainable career pathways.
Across Wintersession and Semester offerings, students will:
- Meet other artists and makers across disciplines
- Learn from entrepreneurs and leaders in the field
- Develop ideas into clear, actionable next steps
- Explore funding opportunities, partnerships, and campus resources
- Practice storytelling and communicating your ideas—through elevator pitches, action planning, or early prototypes
2026 Wintersession instructor:
- Jim Augustine ’01, Founder & CEO of Real Right Good; Chief Steward of As1 Social and The Democratic Economy
Past speakers have included:
- Sabrina Peck ‘84, Founder, Citystep
- Sam Magee, Director, Lemann Program for Creative Entrepreneurship
- Rohit Deshpande, Harvard Business School
- Aaron Dworkin, University of Michigan, Ross School of Business
- Charlote Lee, President and Founder, Primo Artists
- Zuly Inirio, Founder, Afro-Latinx opera
Wintersession is co-presented in partnership with the Mignone Center for Career Success and the Lemann Program for Creative Entrepreneurship.
Upcoming Events for Spring 2026 Leadership & Arts Entrepreneurship Series:
Telling Your Creative Story: The Multi-Faceted Artist
with Maria Finkelmeier, Associate Professor at Berklee Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship
February 19, 6-8pm
Experiencing Difference
with Aithan Shapira, MFA PhD, Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan School of Management
March 30, 6-8pm
Learn more and register. (coming soon!)
Building a Creative Ecosystem: The Entrepreneurial Artist
with Stefon Harris, 2026 Distinguished Jazz Artist in Residence
April 7, 2026
Learn more and register. (coming soon!)