Lisa Schroeder Named Chief Financial Officer And Chief Administrative Officer Of NJPAC

New Jersey Performing Arts Center has appointed Lisa Schroeder as its new Chief Financial Officer and Chief Administrative Officer. Schroeder joined the organization’s senior leadership team earlier this month.

Schroeder most recently served as Chief Administrative Officer of Film at Lincoln Center, based at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. During her tenure at Lincoln Center, which began in 2014, she held multiple leadership roles, including Vice President of Finance and Operations. In that position, she led the organization’s COVID-19 reopening committee and oversaw budgeting, financial reporting, and analysis.

“When I migrated from corporate finance to non-profit arts finance and management, I fell in love with all kinds of performing arts,” Schroeder said. “But what NJPAC is doing in Newark — through leading-edge work in arts education, arts in healthcare and real estate redevelopment — is not just supporting the arts, it's harnessing the arts to have a transformative impact on a community. I want to be a part of that mission of changing lives, changing neighborhoods, for the better through the performing arts.”

In her new role, Schroeder will oversee financial operations and collaborate across departments to advance NJPAC’s strategic planning and social impact initiatives. Her appointment comes as the Arts Center prepares for the 2027 opening of the Cooperman Family Arts Education and Community Center, the ArtSide residential development, and Lionsgate Newark, a purpose-built film and television production studio on the NJPAC campus.

NJPAC’s annual budget has grown from $25 million in 2011 to approximately $75 million today, with nearly $8 million allocated each season to social impact programs.

“Part of Lisa's brief will be to workshop ways we can seamlessly integrate our robust social impact spend into the Arts Center's broader business model,” said John Schreiber, President and CEO of NJPAC. “The volume of free programming and low-cost community-focused initiatives that NJPAC presents and produces each season is financially challenging. Lisa's unique skill set will help the Arts Center not only ensure that those programs are sustainable, but will amplify their impact in years to come.”

Schroeder is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in finance and accounting. She began her career in corporate finance before focusing on nonprofit financial consulting in Colorado and New York City.